


Extraction

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Finding The Way By The Moonlight [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kick, Military Background, Military Service Dog, PTSD, extraction, origins story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty-five people had died, one was going to be forced out for poor conduct, and the other four were damn near useless if the way they were toddling around the base was anything to go off of. It was still a success, General Flynn reminded himself. It had been worth it. They’d get the information they needed, and all of this would have been worth it. Abdul Ahad Kader was sent off to Guantanamo Bay on a non-stop service. Flynn watched as the dog handler received his own discharge papers and the survivors of that hellish week slowly left the service forever. It was worth it. </p>
<p>Except seven months later, they still didn't have the information they needed, and the five survivors were dying faster than they could be saved. </p>
<p>******</p>
<p>When the Military is desperate for answers, and fears for a terrorist attack to rival anything they'd dealt with before, Dom Cobb, Mallorie Miles, Arthur Cohen, and Thomas Eames are forcibly detained. They will only be allowed to leave under one condition: find out everything Kader knows, and save them all from a disaster before it happens. </p>
<p>Origins story</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP that has been bugging me for a long while. Updates will happen at least two to three times a week, every other day. With the exception of the Prologue and Chapter One as they are both shorter by comparison to the fic as a whole. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this, and feel free to stop by my tumblr page for update information and more in regards to this story: 
> 
> http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com

Between April the thirteenth and April the eighteenth, nothing at all remarkable happened in the eyes of the world media. A few people died in a car accident, there was a house fire here or there, a celebrity was caught in a compromising situation, and a few protests happened here or there, but there was nothing truly news worthy to report. The mornings came and the papers went out, and no one reported anything special about those days or what happened between them. 

Mainly, because the joint task force wasn't quite sure how to tell the world the news, just yet. In the end, they weren't sure they wanted to. Of the forty soldiers that had raided the compound, only five survived. And it took those five men, four days longer than had been planned to assemble at their rendezvous point.

On paper, the raid was considered a success. The five soldiers that had made it out of the compound had taken hold of their prisoner and they had brought him back to base- hogtied and furious. They were all pale faced and covered in blood, and one of them was holding his dead dog in his arms in a kind of half mad delirium. It was wearing the bulletproof vest of a bomb dog, and it had stained blood onto the soldier’s skin and uniform.

Anderson Flynn, two star general and career long hard-ass, had taken one look at him and snapped for him to get rid of the dog. There were other things to be focused on at the moment. The soldier had the audacity to glare at him, and he opened his mouth to say something, but eventually kept his mouth shut and turned to walk through the base towards his own barracks. 

The other members of the team dispersed, each one looking more shell-shocked than the last. Each one left, except for one; who took the opportunity to call Flynn “a right prat,” and punched him square in the nose. He’d get a dishonorable discharge for his efforts that day, and Flynn couldn’t for the life of him manage to feel guilty about that. 

This mission had been of the utmost importance. Al-Qaeda’s top leadership had been moving so discreetly they never knew where anything was or what was happening at any given point. But they had had a brief moment of good fortune when it came to this man. He had been working in the higher echelon of the Talbian’s society, and while he wasn’t nearly enough of a threat to be considered “in charge,” he knew information that could help serve them in the long run. 

Thirty-five people had died, one was going to be forced out for poor conduct, and the other four were damn near useless if the way they were toddling around the base was anything to go off of. It was still a success, Flynn reminded himself. It had been worth it. They’d get the information they needed, and all of this would have been worth it. 

Abdul Ahad Kader was sent off to Guantanamo Bay on a non-stop service. 

Flynn watched as the dog handler received his own discharge papers and the survivors of that hellish week slowly left the service forever. It was worth it.


	2. Civilian Arthur Cohen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is trying to adjust to civilian life, but things aren't working out the way that he thought they would.

It was a startling realization, when he had stared down at the piece of paper that praised him for his service and thanked him for his sacrifice. He couldn’t remember exactly what it had been for. After committing eight years of his life to the military, he wasn’t exactly sure how to manage a life beyond. He wasn’t complaining about his discharge, but he certainly wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

He thanked his CO regardless, barely maintaining the required level of eye contact as he bit back conflicting feelings of nausea and fury that never mixed well together. He managed the handshake that he was expected to give, he saluted appropriately, for the last time, and then he turned on his heel and marched into the world to discover what life would be like for a former United States Marine Corps Lieutenant turned civilian.

Some things changed. He let his hair grow out, more because he felt like he had to than anything else. He couldn’t quite bring himself to let it grow down passed his ears, but he did let it stay shaggier than it had ever been before. He didn't need the buzz-cut. He started going to school, but found that while the information was appealing and interesting, he was too restless for the classroom. He dedicated himself to run each day, miles and miles of running that wore him down only a little. There was nothing else that he could do. He felt the need to exert himself, and was desperate for anything to keep him from thinking too hard. 

He set goals for himself, and he pushed himself harder than ever before. If he stayed stagnant for more than an hour at a time, he mind started to drift back into a dark corner of the world where bombs dropped on him an blood splattered across his body. He pushed harder on those days, and if he managed to push just that extra bit harder – he managed to sleep without dreams tearing his mind apart. 

In the morning, he would drag himself to the bathroom mirror. He’d stand there and stare at the unfamiliar face stare back at him. “My name is Arthur Cohen. I am a civilian.” He greeted himself quietly, working around the vowels and consonants that seemed so strange to speak now. Some mornings he couldn’t manage it, the more formalized title of: “Lieutenant,” slipped out. He grimaced slightly on those days, and splashed water on his face. 

He pushed himself harder than he had ever pushed himself before on those days, and would drag himself back to bed nearly in a dead faint. His muscles pulled and ached in a glorious reprieve and he was grateful for the ability to just check out. 

Some things, however, couldn’t possibly change. Certain noises still triggered as threats in his subconscious and he jumped badly whenever he heard them. He couldn’t watch modern war movies; they pushed too much on the mental framework he was trying to construct on a pile of sinking earth named “Afghanistan” in his mind. Whenever a teacher felt the urge to talk about wars and politics, he politely requested to be left out of the discussion. His opinions had no place in the classroom. They belonged on a battlefield, and he was exhausted by the overly righteous attitudes of teenage-twenty-somethings who had no concept of pain. 

Dogs were the hardest part, though. He’d walk down the street and his eyes would trail off to the side and he would watch canines and their masters. He’d note the flaws of training, he’d watch when the human partner couldn’t exert the amount of control over the animal counterpart. He rarely gave advice, but when he did it was often me with a kind of wide-eyed concern. He wondered if they thought he was going to train their dog to attack children or murder their loved ones. When he felt their concern starting to waft over his skin, he retreated. He didn’t want to feel defensive while he was with another animal. 

Civilian Arthur Cohen couldn’t let go of dogs anymore than Lieutenant Arthur Cohen could. He found himself patrolling various breeders until he finally capitulated and purchased a puppy for himself. It felt right to have the dog at his side, and he looked into programs that were designed for training service dogs. He didn’t know how to have a dog that wasn’t a soldier, a worker. He didn’t know how to have a pet. He only knew how to have a partner, and so he joined up on the training schedule. He was more than qualified to be a trainer, and he patiently sat through various interviews with different organizations before he was accepted into their fold. A regimen was set up, and it was agreed that every nine months he would get a new dog, and he’d deliver the newly trained puppy to the system where it would go off to war or to do rescue missions. Right now, it was going to start with a small Labrador that was struggling to master how to heel properly. He didn’t mind. He could start off slow, and frankly…he didn’t want another shepherd right away. 

He couldn’t forget Scout. Scout, his German Shepherd who had made it through three tours with him, only to be killed that fateful day no one was allowed to talk about. Scout, who had saved more lives in Afghanistan than any other dog in their unit, and who had died only forty miles out from the arms of safety. She'd died in his arms, hot breath burning the side of Arthur's neck as he held her close. He hadn't gotten to her in time...she hadn't retreated fast enough. Scout had hesitated for just a moment, and had gotten caught up in a concussion blast that no canine could have survived. She'd been right on top of it. Anderson Flynn’s voice echoed in his ear, _get rid it,_ he’d said. At the time, it sounded far closer to: _get over it._ Arthur didn’t know how to get over it. Scout had been his partner, and now his partner was dead. 

Sometimes, he hated the Marines. 

There was a rally at the school a few weeks after he’d adopted Kick. The Labrador had finally managed to heel on command, but he was still far too attentive to everyone else around him. Arthur didn’t like rallies, and he liked what they stood for even less. It was part of the program, though. Kick needed to get used to crowds, and he needed to learn how to listen only to Arthur and to nobody else. 

So he went. He went, and meandered through the crowds. He stopped in loud areas that made his own hackles rise, but he forced out an aura of calm in order to soothe Kick into submission. Kick was curious about everything around him, and would go off to greet everyone if not properly corrected. Arthur was glad for the brightly covered “In Training” jacket Kick had to wear, because it warded off most people from getting too close. Others just couldn’t seem to get the point, however. They saw a dog and immediately felt the need to touch. Kick loved the attention, and soon Arthur found himself people and canine training. 

He didn’t understand why everyone was driven to the need to touch every dog they met, but he almost wished that there were more childhood traumas out there to keep things like this from happening. He was tired of their idiocy, and there was nothing in the world that was going to make him pleased by their actions. Kick just rolled on his back and ignored him as various co-eds came to play. Quickly correcting the behavior, and honestly not caring if he looked like an asshole for scolding both the dog and bystanders, Arthur scowled at them until they backed off. 

That’s when the loudspeakers started to blare the mantra of anti-war prejudice and hate that Arthur had long ago learned to despise. His mind flashed back to the boys in his unit who he’d fought beside and trained. It flicked back to loyal Scout who always was prepared to seek out the bombs and the dangers that lay in their way. It flicked back to those five days in Afghanistan spent capturing Abdul Ahad Kader. 

He clicked his tongue to instruct Kick that it was time to start walking again. He didn’t want to hear this. One of the kids on stage saw him, must have recognized him from a class, and started to call him out – shouting for him to make a comment about the war. Arthur didn’t have a comment to make, and even if he did: he wouldn’t make it here. 

He needed to go for a run. Kick could due with the practice, anyway. 

Time seemed to fade into burning slaps of sunlight and nighttime that fogged and fuzzed around the edges. Kick improved, and Arthur went to school. That was how life went. He walked around his apartment looking for a purpose he didn’t have, and eventually found himself working out harder than was reasonable. He had had to stop the running after he’d gotten Kick. He couldn’t keep up with Arthur’s furious pace that he insisted on going at, and Arthur was too fastidious of a trainer to damage a perfectly good dog for his own well-being. 

A medal arrived in the mail. He’d long ago signed a form saying he was unable to attend a service that would give it to him in person. He didn’t have any family, and he didn’t have any friends that were still alive. He didn’t want to go. Nothing came for Scout. Arthur yanked the medal out of the box and marched it towards where he kept Scout’s leash and collar. He pinned the medal onto the collar, and sat on the floor clutching it to his chest for nearly an hour. Kick paced nervously around him, but he didn’t correct the Labrador or try to use it as a teachable moment. Nothing prepares a dog for its own death and the pain its handler will feel afterwards. Nothing prepares a handler for it either. 

Arthur gets the laptop more because he needed to do homework than anything else. But it soon turned into its own training tool. He kept Kick in various positions for extended lengths of time, training him to only move when Arthur allowed him to. It was necessary, and even though Arthur jumped and flinched at the sounds when they echoed from his speaker: he played soundtracks of guns firing and bombs going off so Kick grew used to the noise during these moments. 

Soon, though, Arthur started to grow restless there as well. He began to scroll the Internet, look at the news and scowl at the false information that was constantly being reported. It was an election year soon, and he was too exhausted to give a fuck. He didn’t care about which President was in Office, it was all-fake anyway. 

He started to wonder about people who were in the army, what they were doing, where they were going. He wasn’t the least bit sorry when he used his slowly growing engineering skills to start accessing databases he had no business accessing, and look into information that he probably shouldn’t be looking at. He never dove into anything that was classified or top-secret. He was still a patriot. He just wanted to find the status of people that he knew. Were they alive? Were they okay? 

He wasn’t as disappointed as he thought he’d be when he saw that most of them were dead. He wondered, vaguely, what else the Marines had taken from him, along with his sense of morality and justice. 

Arthur closed his laptop. 

Time for a run. 

At first it was just a feeling of paranoia that tickled the back of his spine, but it soon solidified as a legitimate concern when he started noticing the peculiarities of the world he lived in. There was always someone sitting on a park bench he usually walked by. They were always on their phone, and the camera on the phone was always faced in the direction that Arthur was walking towards…when he was going out and coming back. 

At school, he took note of a sedan that was starting to pull up to the curb every time he made it to the front gates. And then there was his still active Marine sense that always kicked in when something was wrong. Kick felt it too. He was whining more often lately, and Arthur knew it couldn’t just be him. Kick was trained to look for inconsistencies in the world, and Arthur always trusted his dog. Someone was following him, and he didn’t like it. 

He spent a late night at the school, checking surveillance cameras through a hacked feed he didn’t feel remotely bad about breaking in to. It only took him an hour to realize confirm what he already felt. Someone truly had been following him. It was a group of someone’s, however. They wore standard dress for this part of the city, t-shirts and jeans and sunglasses on hot days. They blended in well, but they were always there. They were at his apartment, his park, his school. They were drifting in and out of the background and flowing into his foreground and it made his fingers clench and unclench around the leash that was always around his hand. 

For the first time since he left Afghanistan, Civilian Arthur Cohen wished he’d woken up that day feeling more like Lieutenant Arthur Cohen. He didn’t have a gun on him, he was still on school property, and right now…he felt anything but safe. 

He looked down at Kick and wondered how he was going to play this. There was no time frame to work on. He didn’t know what these people wanted, but he could guess that it wasn’t good. If they were going to kill him, they could do it at any point – they had enough information now to know his pattern. If they were going to try to kidnap him…well at the very least Arthur could fight back. Where did that leave Kick, though? They hadn’t progressed to fighting yet, and Arthur didn’t have the proper vest for him to wear. Dogs didn’t go into fights without their bulletproof vests. It was against regulation. Kick could die.

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He needed to get the hell out of Dodge, he realized dully. He had no idea where he would go, though. He’d never been on the run in his own country before. Although, logically, he supposed the safest harbor would be his nearest military base. Fort Benning...almost twenty-five miles away. That was the Lieutenant slipping though, Arthur realized with a slightly hysteric laugh. Civilians went to he police and let them handle it. They didn't plan out how far the closest military base was. 

He glanced back at his laptop, the images of the people who had been after him. They were middle-eastern. He wasn’t one for racial profiling, but less than seven months ago he he’d been responsible for taking in Kader. He didn’t believe in coincidences. No cops. He needed to move. 

Standing up smoothly, Arthur reached for his laptop and quietly closed it and slipped it into his messenger bag. He took Kick’s leash, and took a deep breath. It had been a long while since he’d loaded up a dog in a rush. He’d rarely trained for an encounter on home soil, and so he never bothered training Kick how to enter the vehicle quickly. If he didn’t sense any danger, he’d put him in the back just as calmly as ever. Right now, he wasn’t sure if it was his Marine-brain telling him to run as fast as he could or if it was just paranoia. He couldn’t trust himself. 

He was hearing bombs he knew didn’t exist, and his hands had started to shake at his sides. He kept clenching the leash spasmodically. If he released it - Kick would charge...if he held on to it, Kick would stay at his side. Danger...or safety...which one was it now? Kick was waiting for a command, but Arthur didn't know how to give it to him. Suddenly, he had a horrible vision, one that made his gut twist badly. Car bomb. What if there was a bomb in his car? He looked down at Kick. They’d trained for that. For the past few weeks he’d been working with the local police agency to introduce Kick to the various types of smells he’d need to be familiar with on the job. Was he ready for a test run? 

Arthur pulled the bag over his shoulder and clicked his tongue. He always trusted his partner. Always. That’s what they did. He had faith in Kick. His mind already worked out a back up plan. He already knew what he needed to do. He took a deep breath. 

Slowly, he pushed open the library door. He stepped out into the night, and they walked side by side. Kick’s ears were up and alert. He was looking forwards, a determined expression on his face. _He knows._ Arthur soothed himself, thinking. _He knows this is for real._ Kick was smart, and he was fierce in his dedication to his job. He may still be young, and he may still have another few years of heavy training before he was truly ready for a tour, but he knew his job. 

Arthur could see his car in the distance. He could see the cage in the back. He memorized everything he could about it. Was it exactly as he left it? Was anything different about it? His hand reached for his keys and he unlocked it when they were well outside of any possible blast radius. It didn’t go off. Ignition or trigger based, then. Which meant they were still walking closer to a possible live bomb, and neither of them were wearing adequate clothes to protect themselves. 

Arthur refused to stop. He trusted his partner. He trusted Kick. He watched his car, but he also kept an open mind. He knew that his stalkers were out there. He knew they were watching. Was it going to be today? Or was it going to be another day? They kept approaching the car, and suddenly, his gut churned sharply and the hairs on the back of his neck nearly seized in their nervousness. Kick stopped short and started to growl. One bark, two barks. 

“Go!” Arthur hissed, and Kick immediately started running. Both of them cut to the right and went flying across the lawn. Only half a second later – Arthur’s red Mazda burst into flames. The sound of gunfire echoed in the night, but Arthur and Kick were already lost in the darkness. They’d trained for this, and they’d walked this campus enough times to know exactly where to go and what the safest place to be was. 

They’d trained for this. 

Everything was not okay.


	3. Former Captain Thomas Eames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eames is _politely_ asked to go into protective custody, and finds himself in lockdown in a United States Army Base.

Chapter Two: 

It was a rare occurrence when former Captain Thomas Eames was left speechless. Usually he was bursting with things to say, and that compulsion had gotten him court-martialed and dishonorably discharged from the Royal Marines over half a year ago. Still, when United States Marine Corps General Anderson Flynn’s favorite lackey showed up on his doorstep telling him that of the five soldiers who survived the Kader operation at Jabal al Bayt, he was the only one currently still alive, Eames had frozen and been incapable of saying a damn thing. “Pack an overnight back, you’re leaving now.” 

Seven months ago, he might have had a snappy comment to make. Today? He was more than willing to just throw a couple of spare clothes in a bag, toss his cell phone onto the counter, snatch his wallet and his keys, and follow Brown out into the street. There was a car waiting for them, and he quite gladly clambered inside. 

“What the hell do you mean I’m the only one still alive?” He finally managed, after the car had started to roll down the streets of the dinghy town he’d managed to find cheap housing in. “What happened?” 

“Adam Houser was found dead in his home just over a month ago. It was perceived to be a suicide, so no one questioned it. Lawrence Webber died in a car accident two weeks after that, and Scotty McFarlene’s body was found two weeks after that.”

“What about that other bloke? The Lieutenant with the dog? Arthur something?” 

“Car bomb, last night…they’re still looking through the wreckage to confirm dead.” 

“Jesus…” Eames shook his head, nervously running his hand through his hair. 

“One of our technical analysts discovered the pattern and I’ve been sent to escort you back to base where you will remain until we can determine who is behind the attacks.” Eames scowled at him in irritation. 

“Here's a shot in the dark, but could it possibly be the _Taliban_? You know, the people we _just_ got finished attacking?” he offered sarcastically, but Brown merely shrugged when he stared back at him. 

“Until we know for certain, and we can ensure your safety, you’re to return to base.” 

“Which base?” Eames asked, but Brown didn’t answer him. He was perfectly irritating like that. He only complained a little bit when he saw the plane. He asked, for what felt like the hundredth time, why his own government wasn’t taking him out of the danger zone, but Brown continued to refuse to answer. He just insisted it was in his best interest that he do as he was told. Frankly, he didn’t feel like being assassinated just yet, so he played nice. It didn’t stop him from grumbling about it, even before he'd left the army he hadn’t played nice. 

He still didn’t know how he was promoted to Captain, but it had only lasted the two missions before he'd punched Flynn in the nose. Something had to give eventually, and after that five day trip from hell across Afghanistan with every Taliban member for miles around chasing them through the desert, seeing Genderal Flynn bite into that poor kid with the dog had been the last straw. 

Flynn probably didn’t realize that that dog had saved all their lives as it sniffed out each and every bomb on their path and let them walk around them to safety. He probably didn’t give a fuck that if they hadn’t had that dog they’d be lying in pieces while Kader’s information was forever lost. He probably didn’t care. 

Scout had been killed only forty miles out from base. From a God-damn hand grenade concussion blast that had been thrown at them in the middle of a firefight. It had been efficient enough to knock them back for a while, but they’d rallied strong. Scout hadn’t. There was only so much her body could take. 

In the seven months that had passed since that day, Eames didn’t think he’d ever forget the handler’s expression as he realized his dog was dead. Nor would he ever forget the stubborn loyalty to his partner that had led him to carry her corpse the rest of the way back to base. Scout was a hero. She deserved to be honored. Flynn deserved to get his nose broken. Apparently that meant Eames deserved to be discharged. He was oddly okay with it at the time. 

Right now, it served him well. It meant he could be just as belligerent as he wanted to be. He wasn’t in the service anymore, and he was furious that the Americans were essentially kidnapping him just because they’d bollixed up their union. If someone was really concerned with Eames’ safety…shouldn’t he be getting apprehended by the Royal Marine’s instead? He made that point again, and Brown steadfastly refused to respond. 

The plane coasted above a sunny part of what looked like southern America, and Eames made a mad guess at Georgia. When they were just cresting over Fort Benning he sighed, it was a perfectly fine military base…but not quite where he wanted to be right now. He just wanted to be appraised of this situation completely. Brown led him to a car and they quickly sped towards the interior of the base. 

A few phone calls came in for Brown and he answered them abruptly and without bothering to glance at Eames once. He seemed to be trying very hard to keep him responses as vague as he possibly could, but he needn’t have bothered. His audio was so loud; Eames could hear it across the car from him. It was the problem with being on the shooting range a lot; you lost your fine sense of hearing and needed to adjust to pick up those quieter noises. Eames had had seven months to adjust to a normal hearing range, and he’d been delighted to discover that his ears hadn’t been irrevocably damaged by the war. 

Brown just hadn’t realized his flaw yet. 

There wasn’t much happening on the other line, but Eames listened anyway, eager to hear about anything that could help explain more about their current situation. A lot of names and places were tossed around, but the gist of the message was essentially: get in as soon as possible, there’s an update. 

Brown tried to look proud of himself when he hung up the phone and settled back in his seat. For a Corporal, he was getting awfully high in his britches. Eames remembered Brown’s ineptitude in the field. He remembered all too well how Brown had spotted Scout sitting at her handler’s feet and had gone to pet her, only to have the dog snapping and biting at him in a rapid show of snapping teeth. Eames and most of the other soldiers who had seen what had happened had laughed at the sight. You just don’t go up to a military dog, on duty, and pet her. It was going to get you bit. Brown had been lucky Scout hadn’t made contact with him. Scout was a soldier, and when provoked, she was going to act like one. 

The car pulled in through a few checkpoints and then they were off to a more secure area of the Fort. Eames could appreciate their dedication to his apparent safety, but he honestly felt as though they could tone it down just a little while they were on base. No one in his or her right mind was going to try to take him out while in Fort Benning. They’d wait until he was out of the military’s reach first. 

He sighed as they passed by some trees, and almost made a joke about how nervous everyone was, when he caught sight of something. “Stop the car.” He said, startled. He sat up straighter, locking his eyes on the apparition even as Brown sputtered in confusion. “Christ, stop the car now!” The vehicle slammed to a halt and Eames threw open the door – running full stop towards the treeline. 

Lieutenant Arthur Cohen, dressed in civvies and covered in dirt and grime and bleeding in various parts of his body, had just stumbled from the woods. At his side was an equally as filthy Labrador with a torn neon “In Training!” vest on. It stated barking the moment Eames drew too close, and Arthur swiveled his head around to see who it was. He looked like he’d been prepared to get on the ground and put his hands on the back of his head, but Eames never had been one for protocol. 

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Eames accused, looking the Lieutenant over. He looked like crap, to put it bluntly, and his dog still hadn’t stopped growling at him. 

“Kick…enough.” Arthur commanded breathlessly, and the dog did as it was told. 

“May I approach?” Eames asked, knowing full well that at any moment Arthur could drop the least and send that dog loose. It was young enough, and probably wouldn’t do that much damage, but Arthur had always been a brilliant trainer. Eames wouldn’t put it past him to raise a ninja puppy just to spite the world’s conception of acceptable training periods. 

“Yeah. Kick, down.” The dog immediately dropped, and while it still looked at Eames warily, it didn’t do anything else. 

Brown had called in the guard by now, and soldiers were starting to flock from all sides, cautiously approaching Arthur and Kick as though they were strapped with bombs themselves. “Rumor has it, you were meant to be dead-that your car blew.” Eames was looking at him in confusion, still trying to piece in the information that Brown clearly didn’t have. 

“…Kick found the bomb in time.” He explained, and Eames took a step closer. There were fine tremors snaking their way down Arthur’s spine, and his face was rapidly growing more pale the longer he stood there. “Walked here from Troy U…didn’t know where else to go.” 

“You have no imagination at all, truly. Couldn’t have found a more welcoming place? Someplace with more friendly neighbors?” Eames teased lightly. Arthur shrugged. “Now, are you going to make it to the infirmary or not? Because if not, what shall we do to not be mauled by…Kick? Here?” 

“Oh…umm…” Arthur stared dazedly down at his dog before dropping the leash. “Kick…follow.” And then he fell forwards in a dead faint, just as Eames snapped out his arms to catch him. The Labrador barked only once in confusion, before starting to circle them both in a mad attempt to understand what he was supposed to do now. 

Eames didn’t care much for finesse, and hoisted Arthur up and over his shoulder and started carrying him towards the base. He’d been to Fort Benning once before, and he had a vague idea of where he should go. Over the next couple of hours, Brown fussed about perimeter breaches and security lapses. No one ever did figure out how Arthur, half delirious from dehydration and exhaustion, had somehow managed to wander into the Fort without being seen. Years later, it would continue to be a topic of extreme puzzlement and misunderstanding. Everyone wanted to know the truth behind the story, but even Arthur wasn’t sure how he managed it. If nothing else, it lifted him up into near legendary proportions and added shamelessly to his reputation. 

The staff at Fort Benning quickly looked over Arthur from head to toe, and found that he was generally in good health. There was a cut on his arm had come from a bullet skimming passed him, but everything else had been from skimmed knees and palms, and various other nature related injuries on his trek through the woods. He was more dehydrated than anything else, and they quite happily hooked him to a saline drip and let him sleep off his exhaustion. 

One of the Fort Benning dog handlers had stepped forwards and claimed responsibility for Kick who had refused to leave Arthur's side from the moment he’d been admitted. Eames had spoken to the dog a bit, assuring him that Arthur would be just fine and that he’d done an admirable job for such a young pup. The dog handler who had come to claim him smiled at the praising words and thanked Eames for his understanding. 

“They’re soldiers just like the rest of us.” Eames had replied with a shrug. “He saved Arthur’s life by finding that bomb. He deserves a hell of a lot of praise for that alone.” The handler agreed wholeheartedly, and left with Kick. The Labrador seemed relieved to have an owner who clearly knew the right commands and energy to utilize and fell into stride beside her easily. Service dogs truly were amazing creatures. 

Eames sighed and shook his head. Any hope of finding out anything had been ruined by Arthur’s remarkable appearance on the base. Everyone was bustling about trying to fill in the details Arthur so obviously wasn’t able to provide. A technician had been in to confiscate Arthur’s laptop and see if there was anything of note inside it, and Brown made it clear that all updates would need to wait until Arthur could hear them as well. 

It left Eames with more than enough time to start wandering the halls of Fort Benning’s various buildings, and see for himself how the Americans had spent the past seven months. He wandered to the shooting range and watched the new recruits trying to hit their targets. A lot of them were laughable, but there were a few who stood out strong. Eames made a game up of watching them and guessing which one would do better each round. Usually he was right, his quick eye pointing out all the flaws of their position that led to their shots flying off course occasionally. 

“Still got it.” He praised himself as he continued on with his mindless wandering. 

He eventually found himself sitting and staring out a window, watching as people came and went into the fort. Brown had scurried out relatively quickly, picking up a couple of people from the airstrip. He watched them arrive slowly, it was a man and a woman. The woman he didn’t recognize for the life of him, but she was scowling towards the man and looked progressively more put out as time went on. 

The man, he did recognize. He cursed under his breath and tore away from the window. Running across the base to the nearest door, he almost missed them entering an office of sorts. “Hey, Cobb!” He called out gracelessly. The blonde man, still wearing the same dull faded cheap suit he’d wore when the first met almost three years ago, looked up. He winced appropriately, but it didn’t stop Eames from punching him as hard as he’d wanted to punch him back when they first met. 

The woman jumped, eyes going comically wide even as Brown tried to step between Eames and his prey in a ridiculous attempt to slow him down. Eames turned on his heel and glared hard at the man, fully prepared to physically remove him if he didn’t back off. 

“It’s fine!” Cobb shouted, rubbing his hand on his cheek even as he pulled Brown back. “It’s really…fine.” 

“Captain Eames, restrain yourself immediately!”

“Not a Captain anymore, Corporal, and if I was – you’ve got no right to give men an order.” Eames shot back, surprised that Brown was really attempting to instill some sort of authority here. 

“No, but I can.” Turning on his heel, he glared up at everyone’s favorite General, Anderson Flynn. The man looked irritatingly calm about the fact Eames had struck Cobb, and if he had such a thing as a sense of humor, he might have smiled then. He didn’t, though, and Eames felt tension coiling in him once more. Office life had taken the fight right out of Flynn, Eames assessed boldly. He could still take him. It’d be worth the assault charges, although, by the time his own army discovered this obvious United-States-kidnapping-plot he was sure some of those charges would be dropped. 

Eames would have bit out something fierce, but he looked over Flynn’s shoulder and saw Arthur standing behind him. He was swaying on his feet, and his head was angled downwards. Someone had taken the initiative to clean off the grime from his face, but his hair was still filthy and he looked exhausted. He leaned heavily on an IV pole from the infirmary, and had been given some loose fatigues and a white undershirt to wear. His eyes seemed to have trouble focussing on anything, and he had the strange dopey affect of someone drugged out of his mind. Irritation spiked through Eames at the situation, and he scowled at Flynn. 

“Couldn’t just let the kid rest for a moment?” 

“I’m hardly a kid, Captain Eames.” Arthur replied shortly, only slurring a little. His head looked up and he managed an impressive glare despite looking like he was about to keel over any moment. One of his hands fell to his side and Eames watched it clutch for something that wasn’t there. “Where’s my dog?” 

“Secured with the other work dogs. We’ve had a vet come in to check him for any injuries.” Brown piped up with his usual self-importance. Arthur seemed pleased by the response, but he kept shifting his weight and his right hand started grasping at air as if he wasn’t sure what to do without the leash in his palm. 

“Regardless,” Eames cut in, “why is he even here? He should be sleeping.”

“He can sleep later, right now we need to talk.” Flynn replied shortly, motioning back at the office that Brown had tried to get Cobb and his lady friend into. “Step to, Mr. Eames.” 

“Up yours.” Fury crossed Flynn’s face, and Eames grinned cheerfully at him in response. 

“Your maturity knows no bounds.” Arthur commented dryly, before slowly moving passed them both and into the office. Eames watched him pass, grimacing for a moment when the light from the window reflected off his IV pole and caught him in the eye.

He had a sense memory then, sudden and uncomfortable, of marching through Afghanistan with a Scottish kid, three Americans, a dog, and a criminal mastermind. Arthur led the way, Scout checking for safety the whole time, and Eames watching his back to make sure that the kid wasn’t going to get himself killed playing point. 

He shook his head, and followed after him, watching his back just as he had back then. Flynn snapped the door shut behind them all, and marched into the front of the room. Arthur had taken precedence and sat himself down in one of the chairs provided, and Eames leaned against the wall behind him. Cobb and the lady both sat as far away from each other as they possibly could, and Brown was hesitating at Flynn’s side. 

The General didn’t mince his words or bother to hide from them what they had most likely all guessed by now. He handed out files via Brown, and they all looked down to see what was happening. The face of Kader stared back up at them, and Eames watched as Arthur’s fingers tightened around the file. He tossed it back onto the table he was sitting at, and didn’t bother to read any more. 

Curiosity drove Eames to look further, flipping through the sparse information that Flynn had provided. It wasn’t all that different from what he already knew, that is, until he got to the last page. “Nothing?” Eames hissed, standing up straight and ignoring how Arthur’s back went military rigid in a moment. Cobb was shifting around nervously, and the woman was watching him with a tight expression. “You’ve had that bastard for seven months and you have gotten _nothing_ out of him? Not one damn word?” 

“Kader’s interrogation…has proved to be difficult.” Flynn acknowledged slowly. 

“Difficult? Difficult? You have _nothing!_ ” Eames threw the papers down on the nearest table, clenching and unclenching his fists in a mad attempt to relieve tension. Arthur shifted his chair back, and out of the corner of his eyes, Eames could see him start to slowly reach for the needle in his arm. He was expecting a fight, and he didn’t want to be hindered anymore than he had to be. Eames could almost praise him for his foresight. He pressed a hand into the former Lieutenant’s shoulder, and it stiffened under his grasp. Squeezing slightly, Eames backed off. The kid needed to keep that line in for a while longer, and while Eames may be pissed – he wasn’t going to risk any more members of his unit over this asshole. 

Instead of pulling at the line, Arthur’s hands went back to his file. He started to read through it more closely, and his eyes narrowed as he cut through the fine print. “You lost Jabal al Bayt.” His voice sounded fragile, like it was only seconds away from snapping at the slightest provocation. Eames rounded on him, and then leaned over his shoulder to find the line that Arthur helpfully pointed out to him. 

“You’re kidding me.” Looking up, he scowled at Flynn. “Thirty-five…thirty-eight men, and five bomb dogs and you don’t even have his stronghold anymore?”

“It was recaptured shortly after you retrieved Kader. There is nothing to suggest that there is anything of importance still within that base…” Brown informed them.

“Nothing of importance?” Arthur’s tone sharpened instantly. “This is the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. If they knew we knew they were there, they wouldn’t remain in that stronghold. They would have left immediately, and they wouldn’t still be there. They know we can fly an aircraft carrier over them and send them to their seventy-two virgins any time we want. This,” Arthur tapped his finger onto the file, “isn’t the actions of a group of extremists who want to continue surviving. There is something in that base, and they’re protecting it.” 

“Exactly right, Mr. Cohen.” Flynn nodded his head, and Brown sputtered in confusion. He looked at Flynn like he’d just announced that he laid eggs in his spare time, but no one else had had the same reaction. They were waiting for the other shoe to fall, and Flynn didn’t disappoint them. “We believe that there is something in that base, and that Kader is planning something to take place in the near future. As our previous methods have proven to be…relatively ineffective against Kader, and time is of the essence, we’ve decided to try alternative methods of discovering his information.”

“Any information regarding this base that Kader may have is useless.” Arthur said, shaking his head. “They would have foreseen he may eventually break and changed everything inside.” 

“But he doesn’t need to know that, nor do we.” Flynn stated slowly. His eyes flicked towards where Cobb was sitting, and the woman straightened in her seat. Arthur glared at the blonde man who’d been remaining silent up until this moment. “Gentlemen, I’m sure you both remember Dreamsharing.” 

“Yeah, it's how we were attached to your lovely unit to begin with.” Eames muttered darkly. “And when we were all done killing each other over and over again, you sent us into a war zone where instead of waking up we all died for real.” Shifting his gaze to Cobb he glared. “It truly _is_ so lovely to see you again.” 

“It wasn’t my fault.” Cobb replied, softly. 

“Of course it was.” The woman snapped. Her French accent lilted across her tongue, but it did nothing to hide the sharpness of her tone. 

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Eames cut in, and she rounded on him. 

“My name is Mallorie Miles, I am the leading expert on subconscious reactions and dream therapy. And you,” she rounded on Cobb instantly, “you took my father’s ideas and you made a war game out of them! The human mind cannot comprehend that level of violence without affection, and you- _comment oses-tu?_ ” 

“I just built the dream, I didn’t enter it. I didn’t know-”

“You knew.” Arthur said softly. Cobb’s mouth snapped shut. Arthur wasn’t looking at him. “You knew, because I told you. I told you what was happening, and I asked you why they were having us kill each other…and you didn’t care.” Eames reached out to touch his shoulder again, but Arthur jerked away. “None of this has anything to do with Kader.” He stated firmly. Flynn nodded. He looked almost grateful that someone was willing to focus on business once more. 

“We have had several discussions on how to best handle this situation, and we have decided that the best option we have now is through Dreamsharing. Dr. Miles’ research has proven…enlightening, in suggesting that memories can be accessed through dreams. If that’s true, then it should be possible to reveal those memories to whomever is sharing the dream. We should be able to…extract...the information from his mind.” 

“That research is hardly complete, it has been used on unstable minds for the purposes of therapy, not for government conspiracies!” Mallorie replied sharply. 

“The process is the same either way.”

“I’m sorry, this is all well and great, but what exactly does this have to do with Arthur and I?” Eames asked, holding up his hand in irritation. Flynn looked almost surprised by that. 

“In order to discover what Kader is keeping from us, we need to know what’s in that building. Only five people in the world would be willing to divulge that information to us, and two days after discussion for this project started to go underweight, all of the survivors of the Jabal al Bayat raid began to die one by one. You’re the last two left. You tell me what it has to do with you Mr. Eames, because from where I’m standing: it has everything to do with you.”


	4. Docteur Mallorie Miles and Corporal Brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cobb, Mallorie, Eames, and Arthur spend their first night together in Fort Benning. Eames and Mallorie get to know each other better, and everyone prepares to dream for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful readers, I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

Night fell on Fort Benning, and everyone herded into a spare room turned barrack to sleep in. Mallorie barely batted an eye when Brown had informed her she would be sharing a room with them, and merely tossed her belongings onto her bed, started to pull off her shirt, and got ready to change. Cobb had sputtered, and flushed as he turned around in an attempt to give her privacy. Eames had just shrugged, and Arthur honestly looked too tired to care one way or another. 

He dragged himself to one of the spare beds and slowly sat down. His saline drip had emptied by now, and he picked at the tape on the needle in his arm before removing it all together. Their room didn’t have a window, and it seemed more like a glorified jail cell than anything else. There was a crack of gunfire in the distance, as late night practice sessions started to wrap up. Arthur flinched slightly, before turning and lying on his side – back to the room. 

Cobb kept standing there, looking like he wanted to say something, but no one wanted to talk to him at the moment. Mallorie was resolute in her decision to avoid him to the best of her ability, and seemed to content herself with moving towards Eames’ bed. “Take me for a walk.” She demanded, and Eames had the sudden vision of what a dog must look like to Arthur when it was demanding exercise. His mind overlay an image of a standard poodle in her place, and he snorted even as he nodded. He was too high strung to sleep right now anyway. 

Cobb looked like he had sucked on a sour candy for too long with the look he was giving them, but Eames couldn’t be bothered. He took one last glance at Arthur who had finally passed out, and wished that the kid would get at least another eight hours of solid sleep before he was forced to get back up again. Flynn never should have dragged him from the infirmary, and Eames had watched as he’d slowly been losing his battle with consciousness the longer Flynn debated the feasibility of their project. 

After two hours, Eames had had enough and demanded they call it a night, all but dragging Arthur to his feet and pushing him towards the door when Flynn started to protest. He’d half expected Arthur to tell him that it wasn’t necessary, but the former Lieutenant just dragged his feet towards the door and didn’t even spare Flynn a second glance. Eventually the man told Brown to escort them all to their chambers, and that had been that. 

It felt kind of morbid to think it, but Eames was glad that of the soldiers that had survived: Arthur had made it through. He’d been as straight laced as any soldier, evoking a sense of calm that just came naturally to the man. When some of the others started to get nervous or anxious, he talked them down, and he never once lost his cool. He’d been an irreplaceable asset, even before their trip into Kader’s lair, and Eames had genuinely liked the man the same way that he genuinely didn’t like Cobb and Flynn. 

“So…you know Cobb as well?” He asked Mallorie, as she stalked the base in her sensible heels. The woman turned to look at him with a mildly appraising expression before nodding shortly. 

“He was a student of my father’s.” She explained. “When my father first began to work with the PASIV device, Dom was his protégé. We worked alongside each other in order to balance and stabilize the dream. Dom built the world of the dream, and I used it to understand my patient’s mindsets and help them with the trauma they may have been experiencing.” 

“So you’re a doctor?” She smiled.

“Yes Mr. Eames, I am. A psychologist who focuses on the dream world as the direct route to the subconscious and understanding. All fears, hopes, and desires are in the mind, and the dream is the manifestation of it all. They are linked, one can never separate from the other.” Eames nodded, rolling his shoulders somewhat as he kept pace with her. Her face grew troubled, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “This idea of…extraction…it is possible, but I fear we will never have the information we need to successfully complete the endeavor.”

“Why is that?” 

“Extraction comes from understanding the mind and all within it. You have to guide the patient through the dream, help the patient to understand that their secret is best to be known. They are more malleable in the dream; it is easier to interpret. Kader will not be so easily fooled. He will not simply tell us what we wish to know, we would have to force through his subconscious, make it tell us. I do not…I have never forced my patients to reveal anything before. It is…unethical. Yes?”

“Yes.” He agreed. She stopped, and looked at Eames closely. 

“You were one of Dom’s soldiers? Like Arthur?” 

“Yes. He built us an Afghanistan all for ourselves where we learned how to murder each other and what it was like to die a thousand deaths.” He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what it was like to be told he needed to kill the people in his squadron. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what it felt like to murder and be murdered by his best friend. 

“It must have been terrible.” She consoles him, and he grimaces. 

“It wasn’t fun.” He admits easily. 

They walk together for a while longer, not really talking about anything of consequence. Georgia is far warmer than England, and far dryer too. He doesn’t mind the weather so much, but he does mind the fact that he hadn’t really had time to do anything before he left. He was living on his own using some money he’d saved up, so he didn’t need to call anyone, but he didn’t like just dropping everything for an impromptu trip across the Atlantic. 

Spurred on by curiosity, Eames led Mallorie towards where the dogs were kept, and they walked through the kennel in relative silence before they found Kick. The Labrador was laying in one of the cages on the end, his head resting on his paws. He was sleeping soundly, and Eames wondered if they’d drugged him. 

“This was the dog Mr. Cohen had with him?” 

“Arthur? Yes.” He was never the best with faces, on dogs even less so, but the neon-training vest was hanging up on the side of the cage so he assumed it was the right one. Eames had to smile when he saw a few of the added patchwork that had decorated the vest The amount of “STOP DO NOT DISTRACT” and “I’M WORKING” badges seemed a bit extreme, but Arthur must have been having trouble with the locals if he’d gone to such an extent. 

“It’s so strange…you were an assault team, why did you bring a dog with you?” She asked him, and Eames sighed. 

“Intel was poor. We didn’t know what we were going to face when we went in there. Arthur was one of the best trainers the United States Marine Corps had, so they brought him in and had him go out with us. He led the unit in, and when the all clear was given, they stormed the fort.”

“But they bark when they find bombs, do they not? Would you not have been discovered?” 

“Scout was trained to lay down. She’d find a mine; point to it, then lay down. Sometimes she’d growl, but she didn’t bark unless Arthur told him to. Scout…she was probably one of the best marines I’d ever worked with.”

“You speak as though he is human.” 

“She…she was a soldier. She was a great soldier.” Eames murmured, trailing off. “We were just outside of our rendezvous point. We’d been walking for days, and we knew we’d make it now. It was just a matter of getting there. Al-Qaeda made one final push out, and caught us in a bad pass. Arthur let Scout go, and she ran after one of the men closing in on us. We took him out quickly, but someone else through a grenade…it was a concussion blast. With all the rocks around us, it didn’t do much physical damage to us except shake us up and give us the worst whiplash I’ve ever felt. But for Scout…it landed right next to her. Arthur had tried to get her to move out of the way, but she couldn’t make it in time. She died in his arms.”

“It must have been hard for him.” Mallorie murmured, looking at the Labrador. 

“It was. He was real quiet for the rest of the trip back, but he carried her back the whole way. We were all pretty banged up after the four days of walking and dealing with Kader, but he still carried her all forty miles back to base. Then we touched down and Flynn chewed him out for still holding onto her. You just don’t do that.” Eames growled. “You don’t do that to someone. Especially not to a fellow soldier. That’s the problem with these higher up officers though, they spend their time behind a desk…they don’t remember what it’s like to put all your faith and safety in a dog. They don’t remember what it’s like to lose a fellow Marine. So I punched him, and I never felt guilty about it.” 

“You were discharged though, surely you were not happy about that?” 

“Nah, it was all right. I didn’t mind.” He shrugged again. “After everything that happened between Dreamsharing and Jabal al Bayt…I was happy to leave. Except now I guess I’m back.”

“Hopefully not for long.” Mallorie offers politely, but he snorts at that and they start making their way back to their chambers. 

On the way, she explained how she’d been dragged out of her office with the words “utmost need” and “imperative” thrown around like it meant something. Someone had already broken into her apartment and collected her things, and then she’d been sent to Georgia without so much as a proper explanation. On the plane she’d been forced to sit with Cobb who was stumbling through apologies and explanations the whole while. She was simply too tired to deal with him at the point in time, and she desperately wanted to get back to her office. It didn’t look like that was going to happen for any of them any time soon. 

Arthur was still sleeping when they got back to the room, and Eames watched as Mallorie walked towards him and pulled a blanket over his shoulders. The Lieutenant curled in on himself, hugging the soft wool just a bit closer and she stepped away from him with a fond smile on her pretty face. 

She moved to her bed and seemed to have no shame at all as she took off her pants and climbed under the covers. Cobb tried to talk to her again, but she stubbornly turned her back on him. When he approached, Eames almost laughed at the biting French slur of thinly veiled threats that had the man eventually let up and walk back to his bed and try to get some sleep. 

 

It was difficult to tell with no windows, but Eames was fairly certain that it was morning when he woke up again. He could hear movement to his right, and he tilted his head to see what was happening. Arthur’s face was lit up with a faded blue glow, and Eames quickly spotted the keychain-sized flashlight balanced between his teeth. The Lieutenant was tugging on his pants and lacing up his boots with military precision, and Eames almost laughed. Some things never could be forgotten. 

Standing up straight, the American soldier made his way to the door and pressed down on the handle. Just like before, it was locked. For a moment, Eames watched him stare at the door without moving a muscle. Then, his hand pushed down on the handle again, and rattled it roughly. Nothing. 

“All right there, Arthur?” Eames asked, sitting up. His eyes narrowed tightly, and he watched as the former Lieutenant turned to look at him. He kept the flashlight pointed downwards, but it was enough for him to take in Eames’ face and posture. 

“It’s locked.” Arthur replied, turning back to look at the door. It was metal, and the industrial nature of it meant that it was bolted somewhere. It couldn’t be carded open. Arthur’s right hand started to clench and unclench like it always did when he was starting to get agitated. 

Eames was only half surprised when the Lieutenant crashed the side of his fist into the door in a show of displaced anger. The sound echoed throughout the room, and both Mallorie and Cobb snapped awake. Feeling little to no sympathy for their sleep drowned eyes; Eames marched across the room and flicked on the light. Arthur flicked off his flashlight immediately, and tugged again on the handle. 

“Quelle heure est-il?” Mallorie asked, rubbing a hand on her eyes. Arthur checked his watch. 

“Just after 0500 ma’am.” He replied politely, and then threw his fist against the door. 

“You aren’t going to open it that way.” Eames told him blandly, and finally Mallorie and Cobb seemed to pick up that something was wrong. “Door’s locked.” Eames explained. 

Mallorie immediately was off her bed and rushing towards them. Arthur raised his brows at the sight of her sans pants, and Cobb sputtered and called out for her to put some on, but she held up two fingers at Cobb before grabbing the handle and shaking it. Nothing. 

What followed was a remarkable display of the vast quantity of French explicatives that Dr. Mallorie Miles clearly was familiar with. She swore at the door for so long and in such an impressive range of curses, that when the familiar buzzing of an industrial lock opening echoed through the room, they were almost certain it was because she had intimidated it to death. Still, she looked entirely self-satisfied as she reached for the handle once more. It was already depressing before she touched it, however, and Eames quickly grabbed her arms and yanked her out of the way. 

Brown was standing there, a mildly irritated expression on his face that everyone ignored. Mallorie stamped her heel down hard on Eames’ bare foot and he jumped – letting her go. Before anyone could stop her, she’d slapped Brown clear across the face and continued her tirade in French that the door had been subjected to. 

Eames’ grasp on the French language, clearly, would need to expand more than the sparse understanding he had of it, because at certain points Arthur looked like he was about to start falling into hysterics with whatever it was she was saying. Her perfectly cultured pointer finger kept poking into Brown’s chest and she was towering over him even without her heels on. 

Brown seemed to not know what to do or say to a half dressed French woman so early in the morning, and stood there gawking for the most part. His eyes slipped towards Arthur who was brimming with glee, and to Cobb who was finally starting to lose that horror struck expression he’d had since Mallorie had decided to assault their door without her pants on. Cobb actually was hiding a smile behind his hand, pretending to itch his nose, and Eames decided he truly did need to learn French from this woman. He was certain she could teach him quite a lot. 

“I…I’m sorry…Ms-”

“Docteur!”

“Doctor Miles, but umm…I don’t know what you’re saying.” It might have been the accumulated stress of everything that had happened lately, it might have been waking up to the sight of an angry French woman shouting at doors and armed servicemen, or it might have just been the honest confusion on Brown’s face, but either way: Arthur lost it. He finally let out that choked back laugh he’d been holding on to, and he turned away in hysterics. True tears were coming to his eyes and he rubbed at them as he laughed harder and harder. 

It was like a tidal wave, the moment Arthur broke, Cobb was laughing and Eames joined in. Mallorie was still fuming, and Brown still looked so confused as to what exactly was happening, but it only had them laughing harder. It took several long moments before Arthur managed to reel himself in long enough to politely explain that Mallorie was upset they’d been locked in and that it was inexcusable for the door to be locked like that. 

“And it is a fire hazard!” Mallorie spoke up, pointing upwards to the fire alarm that was uselessly resting above the door. Eames started laughing again at that, and even Arthur was smiling some more. Brown nodded his head awkwardly, before sighing. 

“The General believes it is in your best interests to not be left…in the open. The door was for your protection.” 

“Who exactly is going to kill us in our sleep, Brown?” Eames asked, frowning at him. “We’re in the middle of Fort Benning!”

“And it’s already been established that there is a traitor out there.” Brown replied frostily. “We’ve run facial recognition on the men who were following you, Arthur, and we’ve successfully managed to trace them back to a home grown branch of Al-Qaeda.” 

“Out of curiosity…did you know about the men stalking me before or after you found my laptop and the information I’d already collected?” Arthur asked bitterly, amusement swiping off his face in an instant. Brown recoiled slightly, before glaring at him and stiffening his back. 

“Your information merely sped up the process-”

“My car had a bomb in it, Corporal. I was shot at on my school campus. Kick didn’t even have a vest on, he could have died!” Brown looked utterly confused about what to make of that, and turned to Eames, absurdly, for support. The former Captain had none to give, he remained perfectly silent. 

“I…was under the impression he had a vest…”

“Not the right kind.” Arthur hissed. “I don’t bring my dog into any hostile situation without a bullet proof vest on. I was on school campus; there was no reason at all to assume that I was going to experience a bomb threat. What would have happened if I hadn’t trained Kick to recognize those smells? What would have happened to him? He would have died.” 

“It’s just a dog.” Brown said, and Eames prepared to move in case Arthur decided to go postal. Instead, Arthur merely looked stricken. His face drained of all color, and he looked towards the ground. His right hand clenched and unclenched again and again, before he finally looked back up to Brown. 

“I’m going for a run.” He finally stated, before soldiering passed Brown and marching down the hall and away from everything. 

“You can’t go outside-” Brown started to call out, but Eames stood in his way. 

“Don’t talk to us ever again.” He snapped. Reaching for his clothes he tugged them back on and slipped his feet into his sneakers. Mallorie snatched up some pants too and Cobb hurried to put his clothes on. Brown tried to talk to them, tried to give them some commands and tell them what to do, but all three of them were pushing passed him and hurrying after Arthur who had long since disappeared. 

Eames directed them towards the kennel, and when they arrived, he wasn’t surprised to find Kick missing and his vest and leash absent from the side of the cage. Cursing slightly, he backtracked out of the kennel and towards the main grounds of the complex. It was still dark out, the sun just cresting over the hills in the distance. He could barely see anything out there, and eventually sighed. Arthur would sulk for however long he was going to sulk, but he’d come back because he was a patriot just like the rest of them. He may hate Brown and everything he stood for, but he wasn’t going to abandon Flynn’s mission. Not just yet, anyway. 

They reconvened at the dining hall in the main compound. Several of the soldiers raised their brows at them, but no one really interacted with them aside from shifting over to allow them to sit. They ate the food without complaint, although Mallorie’s pretty little nose upturned itself at some of the choices provided. Eames almost laughed at her distaste. He’d long ago grown used to shoveling bland pieces of whatever this was down his throat in order to survive. She’d get used to it eventually. You weren’t supposed to like it, you were just supposed to eat it in order to survive. 

Brown found them there and hastily tried to get them to go to the conference room that Flynn had prepared for them, but Eames steadfastly refused to listen to him, and Mallorie was doing a lovely job pretending that she didn’t understand enough English to make sense of Brown’s words. Cobb kept looking at them uncertainly, and knew that this was a stand off between them. Eames was furious, Mallorie was still sulking, and Arthur was…something. If Cobb broke from the pack now, it would divide their loyalties completely, and he was trying to make amends. So he kept his head down and didn’t listen when Brown insisted for the hundreth time that they needed to go. If he caught Eames’ slight nod of approval, he didn’t mention it. 

Eventually Brown stormed off and Flynn himself had to arrive to command them into action. Eames was still furious, but he wasn’t mad enough to argue against the General right now. He was angry enough to repeat Arthur’s question regarding his laptop. Flynn sighed. 

“We…didn’t know that Mr. Cohen had been stalked prior to the attack. We were…surprised…by the data he collected.” 

“So if he hadn’t noticed anything, if he hadn’t had Kick, he would have died.” Mallorie confirmed, staring at Flynn with something similar to the look one gave a bug one was about stab onto a pinning board. 

“Yes.” Flynn agreed quietly. 

“And his cadet would have died too.” Eames almost laughed at Cobb’s attempt at validating Kick as a soldier in training…almost. The man was trying. 

“He’s…very lucky.” 

“No, he’s a God-damn genius, and you people gave him his walking papers. For what?”

“You think we wanted to let him go? His tour was up, and he didn’t re-enlist. Hell, he’s lucky we didn’t stop-loss him!” Flynn bit back. Mallorie looked confused at the statement, but their argument couldn’t persist as Arthur had quietly started to walk in behind them. He had Kick at his side, and both looked like they had done nothing but run since the time Arthur had abandoned them several hours earlier. Arthur had a couple of bottles of water tucked under one arm, and was as stony faced as ever, but it did nothing to stop his newfound roommates from feeling ill at ease with everything that had happened earlier in the morning. 

“Might have saved you a lot of trouble if you did.” Arthur stated softly, as he approached their group. “If you’d stop-lossed me…” He clarified when no one seemed to know what he was talking about. Eames grit his teeth at the comment, but Flynn simply sneered and then made his way towards the front of the conference room. 

“Let’s get a few things clear.” He announced as he turned back around to face them. “You four are here to help save soldier’s lives. Have mistakes been made, yes. Is there a strong potential for a leak? Yes. That just means one thing – the faster you work, and the quicker we get the information we need, the sooner this whole thing gets resolved. Until we know for sure there isn’t going to be another attack on your lives, you’re going to stay here – inside and out of the line of sight of anyone and anything that could pick you off. Accidents happen even on army bases, and we don’t have time for any mistakes. Whatever is in that base, we need to know, and the only way we’re going to find out is if you get into Kader’s mind.” 

“I’ve already told you, this…‘extraction’ you want for specific details…it isn’t proven. It isn’t tested. We’ve used it to find symbols, to find meaning in the subconscious. Specificity has never been achieved yet!” Mallorie snapped, slurring her “r’s” and dropping her ending consonants like any true French woman. 

“Then make it happen. Find a way.” He motioned towards a silver briefcase on the table, and Eames’ cheek twitched. “We need to know what’s in the base. Go through their memories,” he pointed towards Arthur and Eames, “and find me something important. If we figure it out from what they can see, then we won’t have to try it on Kader.”

He gave them each a pointed look before marching out the door. No one bothered to check if it was locked. It probably was. Arthur stared at the machine for a long while, before slowly crouching to the ground and uncapping one of his bottles of water. Lifting it up to Kick’s mouth, he tipped it slightly and the dog lapped at it happily. 

“How’d you get him to do that? I could never get my dogs at home to drink out of the bottle.” Cobb asked in awe. Arthur glanced up at him blankly. 

“I trained him.” He said dully. “You can’t just make someone do something they’ve never done before and have them be good at it. It’s a physical impossibility. But if every day you do something…every day you reinforce it…then he’ll do it. He’ll do it because he knows how to do it. Just like you know how to tie your shoes, and…and how to construct a dream world.” He looked away, letting a hand reach out and pat Kick on the head. 

“When you’re asleep, will he be okay?” Eames asked carefully. Arthur had never had Scout with him while they were dreaming before. The Marines had always had him keep Scout in the Kennel. From the way Arthur was acting, Eames doubted he’d ever let Kick out of his sight voluntarily again. 

“He’ll be fine.” Arthur assured him before standing up and turning to look at the PASIV. “Once more unto the breach?” He quoted sullenly. 

“Seems like.” Eames sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Cobb shifted uncomfortably, and Mallorie just closed her eyes. She looked like she might be counting to ten, and when she opened her eyes again – she looked fierce. 

“Let’s just go into the dream and see what damage Dom has managed to done.” She said snidely, earning an indignant glare from Cobb and a slight smile from the two soldiers. 

Slowly they moved towards the device, and everyone took a chair around the table. Arthur had a errant thought about a séance, but quickly pushed it aside. He slouched a bit into his chair to get more comfortable and watched as Mallorie slipped closer and placed the needle in his vein. Eames went next, then Cobb, then herself. When they were all looking ready to go, she reached for the plunger on the PASIV. 

“Kick, down.” Arthur commanded softly, and her finger hesitated above the button. The dog obeyed instantly, and after a moment – he rested his head on Arthur’s foot. “Stay…” Arthur told him, and Kick nuzzled even closer. “Just…stay.” If the command sounded more pleading than it should have, no one commented. Mallorie pressed the button down and slowly; they fell asleep.


	5. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team dreams together for the first time, but not everything is okay when they wake up.

Arthur was on a beach. He was lying back in a lawn chair, and he could hear waves in the distance. The bright sun was high above him and he sighed slightly, squeezing his eyes closed to avoid getting blinded. He heard a bright laugh above him, and he dared to glance upwards. A beautiful woman was leaning over his head, smiling and laughing. She was in a scandalous bikini that left nothing to the imagination, and she had a brightly colored beach ball in her hands. She was wearing giant sunglasses and had one of those great big sunhats that you only see in movies. He couldn’t remember seeing a more gorgeous woman in all his life. Mallorie. His mind told him, and he blinked rapidly. 

Then he sat up so violently he almost cracked his skull on her chin. She pulled back, and he stared at the water around him. He’d never been to the beach a day in his life. It was the sand. He hated it. He never wanted to see it ever again. Despite living in Georgia, he’d never gone to the beach. Not once. He felt his lungs start seizing. He was dreaming. He was fucking dreaming. 

“Are you all right, Arthur?” He jerked away from her when she touched his arm. Death. There was going to be death soon. He threw himself to his feet. She looked startled by his panic, and opened her mouth, but he caught her roughly by the arm. Pressing one hand over her mouth he shook his head in desperation. 

“You can’t talk, they’ll find us faster.” He told her succinctly. They needed cover. They needed the high ground. He looked around desperately. There was no high ground. They were standing on the edge of a small island that was all sand. Ocean was all around them. They were wide open for attack. 

Mallorie slowly lifted her hands to touch his face. He flinched at the contact. She brought his head around so he was looking her in the eye. Slowly her fingers traced through his hair. Over and over again, she stroked his hair like she was petting a cat. He stared at her, nearly hyperventilating. He couldn’t move. He was frozen, and she kept petting his hair delicately. 

Slowly, she moved her head back and away from where he’d been pressing his palm against her lips. Then, very patiently, she told him: “no one is going to die, Arthur.” He went rigid as she spoke. His eyes shot around the island. She just didn’t understand. “This is my dream, Arthur. This is my world. No one will hurt you here. I will never hurt you, ever.” He drew his eyes back to hers, and she smiled at him. She pulled at his face a little, angling it so it rested against her shoulder. “You’re my brave knight…” She whispered to him, words slipping out in French. He closed his eyes. “My brave knight who is so tired.” His hands reached to her sides and started to hold on to her. “Feel me, Arthur…you’re in my mind. Feel it. Do you feel threatened here? Do you?”

“No.” The word nearly strangled him when he said it, but she kept running her hands through his hair. They were moving now, sitting on the lawn-chair she’d abandoned. He barely noticed her abandoned beach ball rolling away into the water and getting swept out to sea. 

“You are safe. I will never hurt you. You are always safe with me.” He nodded against her, and felt as though the last of his tension was finally starting to slip away from his body. He felt the slight shift in the air around them, and opened his eyes. He turned his head and froze when he saw Eames standing not too far away. Jerking back, immediately feeling on the defensive- he was going to kill them- he jumped when Mallorie pulled him back to her chest. “You’re safe. He’s not going to hurt you here. You’re safe.” She was shifting, turning to look at Eames. “And you are as well.” She told him simply. 

Eames approached slowly, but soon was crouched beside them. Arthur’s eyes locked on to him and never left. The former Captain took a deep breath and licked his lips unconsciously. “It affected me too.” Eames told him. “The sand…the dream. It’s not just you, Lieutenant.” The former United States Marine frowned at Eames, but he kept right on. “And while I still think you’re going to turn around and try to kill me…I promise I won’t do anything to encourage it. I won’t kill you ever again, Arthur…so long as you don’t kill me.” Arthur nodded sharply. He pulled away from Mal and held out his hand. Eames thought it was rather antiquated, but he would take it. They shook on it, and Arthur’s shoulders finally fell out of that rigid posture that made him look ready to take off at any moment. 

Mallorie sighed and then nodded to herself. Standing up, she pulled a stray hair from her face, and went to go collect her beach ball from the sea. Arthur sank his head into his hands and took a few deep breaths, before he stood up and shook his head. “Isn’t Cobb supposed to be here?” He asked, glancing around again. 

“You’d think.” Eames muttered. 

“Oh Dom?” Mallorie asked coyly. “He woke up somewhere else, I wanted time to understand what he’d done first.”

“Where is he?” Arthur asked, still trying to locate him on the barren island. 

“Out there.” She pointed towards the water, and if they looked hard enough, they could just make out the sight of a sailboat far off in the distance. “Now…catch!” She laughed brightly – tossing her ball towards them. 

It shifted and changed in mid air, morphing into a volleyball instead. Mallorie looked delighted by the development, and Eames ducked under it – popping it up expertly. Arthur scrambled, slapping his arm out and striking it as it fell towards him. Mallorie was there, diving to make contact. It was a valiant effort and she just caught the edge of it in a flopping punch. Eames set it once more, and soon they had a game going. 

Arthur wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with dreaming, understanding dream space, or getting familiar with the concepts of dreams, but he felt more relaxed now than he had in a very long while. Off in the distance, Cobb was slowly making his way towards them. His sailboat was taking its jolly good time, and none of them cared at all. They just kept laughing, joking, teasing, and playing with the volleyball for what felt like eternity. 

“So how does this dream psych stuff work?” Eames asked, knocking the ball back towards Mallorie after Arthur popped it up in the air. 

“What do you mean?” She asked, slapping it out towards Arthur who dove for it. She’d removed the sunhat, but was still perfectly content in her two piece and sunglasses. Neither even bothered to notice anymore. She was alarmingly, and beautifully, comfortable in her body and didn’t seem to care one bit if anyone saw it exposed or not. Her lack of embarrassment only seemed natural given the strength of her character, and they honestly couldn’t care less at the moment. 

“You go into dreams and you what…fix them?” 

“Of course not.” She laughed, before spiking the ball hard at Eames. He floundered, not expecting it, and almost dropped it. Arthur dove to recover, and they barely managed to keep it in the air. “The dream is a reflection of the subconscious, and the subconscious is where the mind stores everything. All the good, the bad, the right and wrong – it is here, around us.” 

“What is this?” Arthur asked curiously, catching the ball when it was tossed back to him. He held on to it for a moment, not quite sure if he had the focus to continue the game while they talked about psychology. 

“This is just a blank slate, this…this is nothing. It is a template, nothing more. Dom is the true architect, he can build anything just by imagining it. His work can be so beautiful…” She sighed and shook her head. “But he traded it to the government and only built scenarios for death and violence. It is not how the mind should be treated.” 

“That’s why you hate him?” Arthur asked curiously. She laughed. 

“I don’t hate him.” She said, motioning for the ball once more. He tossed it to her, and she bounced it over to Eames. “I am just mad. He is far too brilliant to be wasting his time damaging perfectly nice people and terrifying them through their dreams. He made you nightmares…and he should have made you palaces.” There was something decidedly fairy-like about Mallorie, Eames decided. She had the imagination of one of those lovely children stories where everything always ended so well. She was flawless in that way, and Eames couldn’t help but deny that he might be a little bit in love with that idea. He glanced towards Arthur. He was staring at her the same way, and Eames wondered if she just had one of those auras that couldn’t be ignored. Her charisma was intoxicating. 

Dom’s sailboat had finally landed, and they stopped their game to meet him. He surprisingly, wasn’t all that upset about the idea that they had left him adrift at sea. He took his time jogging over, and when he arrived he was bearing classic beach beverages for each of them. “Can you even get drunk in a dream?” Arthur asked suspiciously as he glanced at his drink. 

“One way to find out.” Eames grinned, waggling his brows at him before licking the salty brim of his margarita glass and taking a sip. “This is perfection.” He admitted, and Mallorie laughed delightedly. 

“You see, you can use your powers for good.” 

“Only for you.” Dom told her, and Eames rolled his eyes at the man’s comment. Mallorie completely ignores him. 

They sit on the beach – umbrellas appear from somewhere, and they’re not exactly sure how it happens, but the dream alcohol does make them all a little dream-drunk and they’re relaxed in a way that they hadn’t been since this whole thing started. Arthur ends up with his head in Mal’s lap, and she strokes his hair and smiles the whole time. Dom keeps looking like he wants to murder someone, but won’t do it because this is Mallorie’s dream and she was very sincere on the no violence bit. Eames decides that in a fight, Mallorie would almost certainly always win. He pities Dom for trying.

They talk loosely about the military, about the missions they were on, about what they did after they left the army. Arthur’s story is pretty well known by now, and he seems content to just doze somewhat in Mal’s lap. They’re pretty sure you can’t dream yourself someplace deeper in a dream, and they’re not concerned with anything. He looks so peaceful no one has the heart to keep him up and active. 

Eames tells them about moving back to London and not finding an affordable flat. He goes on to talk about the various towns he stopped at looking for work before he finally got a job as a part time stage manager at a local playhouse. He stepped in as an understudy when needed. 

Arthur started laughing at the idea that Eames would dress up as various characters and parade around the stage, and the former Captain chucked the volleyball at him. It turned into flower petals before they even reached him, and they all watched as the wind kicked them up and fluttered away. Mallorie was giving him a look that was so challenging he smiled back. She was just as much of a genius in this world as she claimed Dom could be. It was breathtaking. 

Eames stood up, however, and bowed to them all. Then, calling to mind the last character he played – he started to recite line by line everything he could remember. He did voices, and body postures, and Mallorie clapped for him whenever he stopped and waited for applause. 

Then, feeling adventurous, he started mimicking people he knew. He even took on the self-righteous posture of General Flynn and barked out a few commands at them. “You are here to break into a terrorist mind! Not drink margaritas on a beach!” That even got a snort from Arthur who lifted a hand to his face and blocked it from the sun. 

“You’re actually very good at that.” Cobb complimented, and Eames shrugged. 

“It’s just a hobby.” He replied, sitting back down and refilling his drink. Cobb talked about how he got settled into the military, how they’d approached Miles first, but his mentor had refused to participate in the program. 

Cobb had joined it because he wanted to see how far he could expand the boundaries of the world. His research would continue to be funded, so long as he continued to build the world for the soldiers to fight in. He sighed and looked at the beach around them. 

“I just wanted to know how far it could all go. What are the depths of the human mind?”

“You locked us down there and made us all kill each other.” Eames muttered quietly. “It was a horror movie on repeat every day. How did that play into your research?” 

“I did try to stop it.” Cobb told him shortly. “When Arthur…When Arthur talked to me, I didn’t believe him. I told him it was just training exercises…that’s what I’d been told was going on down there. I wasn’t told that they were all dying like that. But I should have known. I saw the signs…I saw what was happening. I should have known. I talked to the higher ups about it…I campaigned for months for the program to be modified, and it was. You guys never went down again.” Eames had wondered about that. He’d wondered why they’d pulled the plug on it so abruptly. “It was too little too late…and I know that, but I am sorry.” 

He looked truly repentant too. He rubbed his palms together nervously, and he met Eames’ gaze head on. Arthur was watching them, still being stroked by Mallorie’s clever fingers. “Apology accepted.” Eames told Cobb sincerely. He may have been mad the orders were being followed, but he wasn’t the one who had given the orders out in the first place. As a person, Cobb wasn’t all that bad. It was just his position and duty in the military that had caused the conflict in the first place. 

Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, Arthur sat up straight. Cobb flinched, he looked at him as though he was expecting to get reamed out, but Arthur wasn’t looking at them. Instead he was frowning up at the sky. “Do you…hear something?” He asked, turning to look around their make shift circle. They all blinked at him, not understanding what he was getting at. He stood up slowly, redirecting his attention upwards once more. “A….growl…?” He asked softly.

Eames opened his mouth to say something glib, when he suddenly realized that he could hear something. It was just off in the distance. Then, more suddenly – a bark, long and drawn out. Everyone looked startled at it, and Arthur tilted his head slightly. He looked down at his right hand, and was about to say something when he was suddenly jerked roughly to the side. 

He was falling hard and fast, and he yelped as his body collided heavily with a hard wooden floor. The leash in his right hand jerked taught in a way that hadn’t happened since he’d first started training. His eyes snapped open and he shoved himself up. Kick was going crazy. He was barking and growling – baring teeth and looking more menacing than Arthur had ever seen him before. His hackles were raised and his posture was utterly defensive. 

Arthur’s eyes swiveled around, desperate to find the threat that Kick had clearly felt the need to respond to. Nothing no one. No one except – Brown. There, in the doorway, looking petrified was Corporal Brown. The man was hesitating there, looking Arthur like he was going to release Kick and have him tear him to shreds. 

“Kick, enough.” Arthur commanded even as he tugged on the leash. His hand was on fire, but he couldn’t think about that right now. Instead, he needed to focus on his dog. Kick needed to be settled. He’d done his job, he’d assessed a threat, he needed praise and he needed to be calmed. “Kick, down.” The Labrador looked at him, then back at Brown, then back at him again. “Kick…down.” There was no doubt in his voice now, and Kick responded by slowly lowering himself to the floor. He was whining though, whining and wagging his tail and anytime Brown moved he’d start growling again – tail stopping and ears pinning back. Anger pierced Arthur’s heart as he looked up at Brown. “What’d you do to Kick?” He asked furiously. 

“Wha-nothing! I did nothing to him. I came in here to see how things were going, because the General asked me to, and he attacked me!” 

“Kick doesn’t just attack people, and he never even made contact with you. So what did you do?” 

“Nothing!” Brown insisted. 

The others were starting to wake up from their dream now, slowly at first – blinking warily into the world around them. Eames met Arthur’s eyes and then frowned as he sat up sharply and caught sight of Brown. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked sharply. 

“I was just checking in for the General!” The Corporal replied shortly. 

“Get out!” Mallorie hissed, moving towards Brown angrily. Kick leapt to his feet, barking and growling once more. Something wasn’t right. Arthur dropped the leash and threw his hands out towards Mallorie. Kick shot towards Brown barking louder and louder even as Arthur spun her around and shoved her towards Cobb. A bullet sailed through the window that was closest to them and snapped into the wall. Everyone hit the deck, and Arthur twisted. 

“Kick! DOWN!” He shouted out, and watched in relief as the Labrador snapped to the floor, dark head turning to look directly at him. “Shuffle. Shuffle, Kick.” Arthur commanded – arms out towards the dog. Sliding forwards, Kick never lifted his body up, instead he slithered towards Arthur until he was close enough to grab. Then and only then did Arthur reach out for him, pulling him close and twisting so he was shielding him with his body. A few more bullets shattered into the room, but everyone was well and truly out of their way for now. 

Cobb was holding Mallorie to his chest, not letting her peak her pretty little French head up even for one moment. Kick was whining in Arthur’s hold, but the former Lieutenant wasn’t relinquishing him for a moment. He was leaned up against a desk, deathly pale and staring off in the distance like he was seeing something that wasn’t there. Eames had a few guesses as to what exactly he was seeing, but none of that could be helped right now. 

Fifteen minutes after the bullets had stopped firing, the door was thrown open and nearly a dozen soldiers in full battle fatigues marched inside. “Everybody out.” Someone commanded, and they scrambled to do as they were told. No one wanted to stay there one moment longer than they absolutely had to, and they hurried to rush out the door and into he relative safety of the hallway. Cobb led Mallorie by the hand, but she choked back a strangled sob when she caught sight of Brown. 

He hadn’t moved out of the way in time. Bullets riddled his body and his corpse was left for them to stare at. Cobb turned, catching her face and pressing it to his shoulder as he led her from the room. She clenched her eyes shut, gripping onto Cobb for dear life. 

The body wasn’t anything Eames hadn’t seen before, and he honestly hadn’t liked the guy enough to truly mourn his death. He turned to look at Arthur, though. The Lieutenant still hadn’t moved. He was sitting, face buried in Kick’s body as he gripped him to him for dear life. Eames grit his teeth. He’d seen that pose before. 

Moving slowly, he knelt before Arthur and reached a hand to touch his shoulder. “Arthur? Arthur…Lieutenant.” He snapped out. Brown eyes lifted up to meet his. “Lieutenant we need to go. We need to get back.” It was the same words he’d spoken back in April when he’d needed to get Arthur moving again after Scout’s death. He hated repeating them now, but Arthur didn’t even seem to know where he was, let alone who he was talking to. 

He stood up, holding onto Kick even though the dog was starting to wriggle in his grasp. Eames kept contact with him, angling him towards the door and giving him nudges whenever he needed to turn a certain way. Once in the hall, and out of the line of fire from any direction, Eames turned and pressed Arthur’s back against a wall. 

“Arthur…Arthur look at me. Look at me.” His eyes weren’t staying focused, he wasn’t even breathing. He stared at Eames, but wasn’t actually staring at him. Eames felt his gut churn badly, and he gave Arthur a sharp shake. Kick whined in Arthur’s arms, but the man didn’t seem to notice. Gritting his teeth, he reached towards the American’s arms and yanked roughly, forcing him to release Kick. The dog only fell a bit, and it wiggled mid air to land on his feet. Almost immediately he was circling his handler, whining and nudging him in confusion. 

Panic crossed Arthur’s face as he realized he’d let the dog go. “Scout-”

“Is dead.” Eames told him callously. He caught Arthur’s shoulders and gave him a furious shake. “Scout’s dead.” He repeated. Then grabbing Arthur’s neck he forced his head to look at the Labrador. “Kick. That’s Kick. That’s your dog.” He squeezed Arthur’s neck. “Your dog needs you, Arthur. He needs you to snap out of this. He doesn’t understand.” Kick was whining desperately now, and the hall was filling with more and more soldiers. They were watching the scene with varying expressions of concern and contempt. A few were polite enough to look away and busy themselves with securing the hallway. Others just openly watched, having never experienced battle or the effects war had on a damaged mind. “You need to be here for Kick, Arthur. No one else. Just him.” 

Arthur’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment; he took a hitching breath in. Then slowly he opened his eyes and looked down at Kick. “Kick, heel.” His voice didn’t break. It didn’t crack. It was calm. It was even. It was collected. Eames took a step back. He watched Arthur turn away from that hallway, away from his breakdown, and away from the soldiers who were watching him fall apart. 

They were led back to their room with no windows and a door that locked them up tight. They were told to wait inside, and food and water would be brought to them. Kick sat by Arthur’s side, head on his lap as he ran a hand through the dog’s fur. He didn’t talk to anyone, or say anything about what he was thinking of. Mallorie sat by Cobb’s side. She’d long ago stopped crying, but her face was still stained with tears. She looked about as miserable as everyone felt. Eames couldn’t stop pacing. He couldn’t stop walking around the room like a caged tiger. 

They’d traded freedom and a bullet for imprisonment but alive. He wasn’t sure which one was better right now. He sighed and looked at everyone in their various states of trauma. Cobb seemed to have handled the shooting the best out of everyone. Kick just looked confused about it all. Arthur rarely had indulged in flagrant coddling in the past, bur right now he always had a hand on Kick and Eames doubted that was going to change any time soon. 

A medic had come by to check up on them, make sure they were all still in one piece. She’d managed to get Arthur to show her his right hand, and she’d fussed over the vicious bruising and broken skin that wrapped around his palm. She’d cheerily declared their were no breaks, but he should be leery of potential muscle damage from the cuts. He hummed a response, thanked her softly, and went back to staring down at Kick. 

By the time the general arrived, Eames had been prepared to leave and hunt him down himself. Flynn took one look at their group, and had the audacity to say that he’d told them it was better for them to remain out of sight and out of mind. He told them they’d be leaving in the morning, that they needed to go to ground and find a safer place to conduct their study. Flynn and the higher echelon of the military were the only ones who knew about the transfer, and they were going to be extremely subtle about all of it. 

When he’d turn to walk away, Eames had stepped forwards into his personal space. His eyes had flicked towards Arthur who needed to be anywhere except a warzone, and Mallorie who had never dreamed of being in a shooting in her life, and his resolved strengthened. “You need to give us some way to protect ourselves.” He told the man. “And vests, all of us…army fatigues or whatever are fine, but we all get kevlar.” 

“Fine. Anything else?” Flynn asked. 

Eames wondered if it was because they’d been shot at on his own base that he was being so accommodating, but he wasn’t going to push his luck right now. “Kick gets one too.”

“What?” Flynn looked genuinely confused at that. 

“Kick. The dog. He gets a vest too.” 

“Not every dog gets a vest.” Flynn sneered. “Especially not ones that aren’t even in the unit-”

“This one gets a vest. Arthur’s always gets vests. I don’t care if he paid for them himself or not, but his dogs always had vests. Kick gets one.”

“Or what?”

“Or I walk out of here right now and take my chances with Al-Qaeda. I’m not telling you a thing, and right now? You don’t have time for that type of delay. So you’ll get Kick a vest, and a good leash, and everything that dog is going to need.” Flynn looked furious that he was being strong-armed like this, but he nodded his head anyway. Sending a furious look towards Arthur and Kick, he turned and he made his way out the door. He had some arrangements he needed to make. 

When it closed behind him, no one was surprised to hear the tell tale sound of an industrial lock being buzzed shut. They were locked inside. 

“I hope there’s not a fire.” Mal murmured softly. Eames snorted slightly at that, and Cobb cracked a grin. Arthur’s lips turned upwards and he kept petting Kick. It was a start.


	6. Running and Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team is moved from place to place as they determine how to go about their plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere and I was stranded for a while, and when I finally got back to school I needed to catch up on my work. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this update! 
> 
> Shameless plug: http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com

They were forced to move every day. They never stayed in one place for too long, and even when they did – they never saw what it looked like outside. Things never got as close as they did back in Fort Benning, but there were a few moments where the hairs on Arthur’s neck stood on end and he turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder. He was always nervous, and always watching. Often, he couldn't sleep. He'd sit up and stare into the darkness of whatever room or vehicle they'd been piled into. He looked like he was always teetering on the edge of a knife. Kick always pressed against him, worriedly, but Arthur barely seemed to take notice of his dog or his surroundings. He moved when commanded to, or on instinct. Nothing else. 

Eames stayed up with him most nights, but they wouldn't talk. They'd just sit there, waiting, as if any moment the bombs would start dropping and the world would tilt on its axis just a little more. They knew it was coming, it was only a matter of time. They both hated it. Eames almost wished he was still fighting the war, at least then he knew who his enemies were and what they were planning. Now, he didn't know if he could even trust the drivers Flynn had coordinated for them every day. He didn't know if it was worth making attachments: everyone kept disappearing or dying. It was a gruesome thought. 

Most nights, Mallorie would lay next to Cobb, and he took his newfound position of trust very seriously. After securing their forgiveness, he was doing everything he could to prove that he could still be a worthwhile individual to have around. He was painfully attracted to Mallorie, and Mallorie almost certainly was aware of it. She grinned at Arthur and Eames whenever Cobb did something he thought was chivalrous, and he did everything he could think of to make sure that she was happy and content. It was an odd form of relaxation, watching them. Eames felt the urge to foster that relationship, help it grow. It was the only thing they had left that wasn't driving them mental. It was a good thing, a happy thing. It made Arthur snap from his daze every so often, and it made him smile just a bit. 

Flynn had pulled through with the protective gear and equipment, and they soon found themselves wearing Kevlar and fatigues everywhere they went. Arthur and Eames settled into it like a duck to water, but the true civilians (as Arthur had come to call them) were still struggling to get used to it all. Snaps, buckles, and ties were everywhere and Arthur drilled them constantly until they could put everything on and take it all off in timely manners. He went over guns again and again and again until they could field strip each weapon they were handed with lightening fast movements. Arthur accepted nothing less. 

Arthur had pulled Eames aside only once to thank him for Kick’s vest. He’d barely gotten the words out he’d been so flustered, but Eames didn’t need the thank you. Kick was a part of this team now, and he’d saved all their lives when he’d woken them up from that dream. Every soldier got a vest, Eames told him, and Arthur nodded curtly. Always. 

The days were monotonous, a constant rotation of driving and hiding that left them mindless and unhappy. 

While they travelled, they talked about Kader. They talked about Jabal Al Bayt and everything within it. Eames and Arthur took turns describing the base. They’d entered from different points, and so they spoke to Cobb separately. He sketched everything out as clearly as possible, and he combined their maps together in the end. 

Once consolidated, they started to point out changes they noticed, flaws that they thought of. Cobb constantly asked them about things that they never thought they would need to remember, and when they couldn’t quite picture things properly – Cobb took them into the dream world and they rebuilt from memory everything they could recall. 

Over and over again, until they barely knew where they were or what they were doing. Jabal al Bayt was their world and they rotated around it like wayward moons with no idea how to stop. It was a wonder that either of them managed to sleep at all. When they shut their eyes, they dreamed of death and despair. It was horrifying. 

They never took Mallorie down with them on those trips. Instead, they walked the halls of their nightmares and they investigated the corners of their subconscious. They pulled out details and facts that they hadn’t consciously remembered, and time and again they ran over the memories until they were certain he could walk through the base blindfolded and barefoot. 

While Cobb focused solely on the construction of the compound, Mallorie focused on the analysis. They needed to work out how they were going to convince Kader to reveal information about the base to them all. They were caught up on translating symbolism into realism, and they poured through countless books and texts that claimed to represent the various parts of the subconscious most thoroughly. 

The military wanted to keep them safe, but it also wanted them to do their job. They ensured they had constant access to various research reports, journal articles, and books. At Arthur’s request, his laptop had been returned to him and he quite happily tore through endless databases. 

They memorized charts and analogies, and found themselves short on temper and even shorter on time. Flynn breathed down their necks, glaring and scowling at them whenever they took just a little longer than he felt was appropriate. 

There were days when the four of them spent more time arguing with one another than supporting one another. In a way, it was like having siblings. They shouted and yelled and talked over one another, but as soon as one of their escorts decided to speak up and interfere, all four of them rallied against him like a violent tidal wave of prejudice. 

After two weeks of moving from safe house to safe house, Flynn arranged for them to get a private jet to Cuba. They were going to spend the rest of their time on lockdown there. Eames had a few choice words about the situation, mainly pointing out the fact that he couldn’t believe they thought they’d be safer in a complex filled with the same people who wanted Arthur and him dead. Flynn didn't seem to care. He never did.

“Do you ever think about after?” Arthur asked him on the flight, looking out the window and clenching air with his right hand. It was a rare moment of sparked conversation. Arthur usually waited for someone else these days, and Eames was grateful to see him starting to branch out just a little bit more. Brown's death and the shooting had knocked something loose in the Lieutenant, and it hadn't been a gratifying sight to see him starting to crumble under the pressure. 

“After we do this?” Eames asked curiously, willing to talk about anything so long as it encouraged Arthur to speak some more. The Lieutenant hummed in agreement, and Eames sighed. “I try not to.” Arthur smiled slightly at that, turning his head to look back at him. 

“You know, don’t you?” He asked needlessly, and Eames nodded. 

“I figured it out early on. You decided what you’re going to do with Kick?” Arthur’s head turned back to look towards the Labrador who was lying, sedated, in a cage at the back of the plane. He rarely flew with his dogs, but when he did he did what he could to keep them calm. Sedation helped, and while he didn't like it when Kick was so far away and unmoving, he could rationalize it. But he could never truly look at him for long, the sight of a too still dog made his heart clench and his head spin. He found it hard to breathe. He turned back around and closed his eyes. _In, out, in, out._

“I don’t get to decide what to do with the dogs I train.” He said softly. 

“Still a stickler for the rules after all of this time?” 

“It’s not that.” Arthur shook his head. “I can’t afford to think about it." He paused and then tilted his head slightly. His eyes slanted back towards Eames, and the former Captain wondered if Arthur had ever had a hard time keeping his gaze steady in the past. The former Lieutenant seemed almost restless today, and he pondered on the reasons. Maybe it was the plane? Maybe it really was because Kick wasn't awake and at his side. Arthur's right hand was still clenching and unclenching around air, but Eames had started to block it from his mind. Arthur always did that one tick, it wasn't difficult to ignore after all this time. "Do you know how many dogs I’ve trained?” Arthur asked him out of the blue. It was surprising enough for Eames to frown at him. 

“No.” He replied honestly. Mallorie had stood up and was walking down the aisle towards the back, and Eames pulled his legs in to let her pass. She smiled at them and thanked him, and he winked back. Cobb was twisting around in his seat to watch her.

“Eight.” Arthur told him easily. “I’d train them, and they’d get picked up and sent to another division. That’s just how it goes. If the dog dies, if there’s a problem, if it’s injured…it’s replaced and you have to move on. I’ve seen a lot of dogs get injured and be sent home, and they’re replaced the next day. If you hold on too hard then you can’t move on.”

“You held on too hard with Scout.” Eames told him bluntly and Arthur winced. Scout was a no man's land. They usually maintained a somewhat silent agreement about such things, but Eames broke agreements easily and didn't see the need to be subtle here. If Arthur was going to bring up the topic loosely, he was going to confront it fully. Eames didn't feel the slightest bit of shame in that. 

“I served three tours with Scout.” Arthur said softly. His hand was clenching and unclenching so fast and hard that his knuckles started to crack somewhat and his palm was growing indents in the skin. Eames reached out and caught his fingers. Arthur jumped, startled, but Eames didn't let go. He just gripped his hand and kept his fingers from twitching even a little. Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but Eames just raised a brow. The former Lieutenant closed his mouth and took a deep breath in through his nose. He closed his eyes and released his breath, and his hand fell slack in Eames' palm. “That’s more than most people spend with the same unit.” Arthur continued softly. 

“Now you’ve got Kick, you don’t want to hold on to him?” Eames turned Arthur's hand over and looked at it intently. The fingers were trembling in his grasp, and for all of Arthur's drills on gun safety and practicality, Eames doubted Arthur could even shoot straight with this hand anymore. Most dog handlers were ambidextrous with their guns, in case they were holding a leash and needed to shoot at the same time. Arthur was no exception. It wouldn't impact him entirely, but it would make things more difficult for him in the long run. There were scars criss-crossing around Arthur's palm from the constant tugging on the leash that Kick had started doing whenever Arthur was asleep and needed to be woken up. It was tearing into Arthur's palm too deeply though, and if he kept it up: he'd have nerve damage. 

“Kick will be my last dog.” Arthur told him softly, breaking into Eames' thoughts. “I won’t get another dog after this.” 

“Why?” Eames asked, looking honestly surprised. Arthur sighed and seemed to curl into himself just a little bit more. His trembling fingers twitched again, and Eames gave them a squeeze to keep them from completely clenching. 

“Same reason I didn’t re-up. I…shouldn’t have gotten Kick to be honest. I don't...I don't have the mind set for it any more. I'm going to ruin Kick before too long most likely...” 

"Kick's doing well, he's been trained very well. Arthur, don't sell yourself short on this one." Eames told him carefully. Arthur just sighed and shook his head. 

"My paranoia is what led to me training Kick like this. I wasn't a soldier anymore. There's no reason to train a bomb sniffing dog." 

"He saved your life because of that. Even if it's just for you - Kick was never a waste of your time." Arthur didn't seem like he really wanted to continue, and Eames sighed. Mallorie was coming back from the bathroom, and he shifted to let her pass once more. She slipped back into the same row as Cobb and they leaned towards each other as they started talking about the plan and what they were going to do about everything. Eames watched them for a while, before a wry smile crossed his face. 

“So what do you think of them?” He asked slowly, changing the subject in order to lighten the mood as best he could. Arthur frowned for a moment, before leaning over to catch a glimpse at the pair. 

“Ex-lovers.” He announced easily. “Who still want each other.” 

“Three weeks until they’re snogging in the portaloo?” Arthur snorted a bit at the phrasing and started to snicker. 

“You are undeniably British.” He announced easily. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Breathing deeply, he gave the illusion of falling asleep, and Eames left him to it. 

Several rows ahead of them, Mallorie and Cobb were running through lists of key words and phrases that had been collected in association with Kader. Mallorie was reading through the psychological analysis that the Guantanamo Bay profilers had assembled. It was very thorough, and unsurprisingly the most important aspect of their research thus far. 

But how to get what they wanted? How could they guide Kader into filling the world with everything they needed him to fill it with? How would they be able to reason what was important and what wasn’t? Arthur and Eames were practiced at dreaming, but they didn’t know how to get the details that they were looking for. They only knew how to run around and slightly modify their surroundings. 

The logical assumption would be that Cobb and Mal would go into Kader’s mind and work out what they needed to find. But they had no idea how to navigate through the warzone that Arthur and Eames had lived through. They didn’t know what to do or how to stay hidden. It had to be them. 

But how would they know what was important and what wasn’t? That was the true crux of the issue. How did they manipulate the mind into revealing everything it wanted to hide? Symbolism wouldn’t be enough. They knew that from the start. It would help guide them once they were in the dream, but it wouldn’t tell them what threat Kader was partial too. It wouldn’t tell them anything about Usama bin Laden or any of his associates. It would only give them glimpses into the person Kader was inside. 

“So we create the world of the dream,” Cobb postulated, turning his sketchbook to one of the many drawings of the compound he’d sketched out. He angled it towards Mallorie so she could see. “In this place, if we made this world…he’d be here.” Cobb drew and X on the spot where Arthur and Eames had said they’d captured the man. “His retinue will be all around him, and everything is going to be fortified exactly as it was in reality. When we join this world…we’ll wake up, here.” He made smaller X’s on the outside of the map. 

“It would be easier to start with him, in the same room.” 

“How? He’ll tell we’re intruding right away. It’ll be the same problem as we have in reality. He won’t tell us anything.” That was the problem, the true problem with all of this. If he wasn’t going to tell them something in reality, how could they get him to tell it to them in a dream? 

“It comes down to trust.” Mallorie murmured. Cobb frowned, not understanding. “With my patients,” she explained, “they open up to me, they reveal their pain to me, because they trust me. They trust that I will do them no harm. They show me what I am looking for, because they want to. It is the only way to get the answers we seek.”

“How are we going to get Kader to trust us? Why should he trust us?” Cobb sighed, tossing his notebook down. “If we had one of his men betray him that might help, but we wouldn’t be here if that was the case.

“I wonder…” Mallorie sat up and turned in her seat and glanced back at Eames for a long while. “Mr. Eames,” she called out. He tilted his head to look at her, and then stood up to shuffle towards them. “Have you ever been in a dream where you were someone else?” Eames blinked at the question, and his mouth twisted a little. 

“I’m not quite sure I follow.” He said slowly. 

“A dream where you knew you were Eames, but everyone else called you by another name and it wasn’t strange?” 

“Uhh….yeah I suppose, yeah.” 

“Do you speak Arabic?” He laughed slightly. 

“It’s not really about speaking Arabic, it’s about the dialect. He speaks a northern form of Najdi. I understand it, but my accent is completely rusty. Why?” 

“Let’s go for a dream.” She told him, smiling magnimoniously. Cobb was still looking like he’d sucked on a sour grape and looked genuinely confused as Mallorie started to pull out the PASIV and adjust the lines. “When we go under, I want you to focus on one of the men in Kader’s encampment. I want you…imitate him, like you’re so good at doing. Speak Najdi.” Eames blinked a few times at that, but didn’t outright complain as she slid the needle into his vein and prepared them all to go under. 

No one was more surprised than Eames, for when he spoke Najdi in this world to Dom and Mallorie – his voice wasn’t his own. It was one of the dozens of voices he’d heard screaming and shouting in Jabal al Bayt. “What did he look like?” Mallorie pressed, and Eames struggled to remember. He struggled to remember one of Kader’s allies, what any of them looked like. They were all wearing the same clothes- that shifted and melted across his skin easily. His face was hidden behind the scarf, and it made his voice dip deeper. His eyes felt different, and a wave of nauseous panic settled in him – shaking the illusion and shifting him right back into his own body. He looked up at Mallorie, blinking in confusion, and she looked so interested that he wasn’t sure what to say. 

It was Dom who spoke first though: “This could work. Let’s try it again.” And Eames felt the urge to kill him starting to grow once more in his chest. He shivered as his head ached badly. 

“What exactly are we trying?” He asked dully, although he had an idea already. 

“We need a way to convince Kader that we can be trusted. If you can create this image, then perhaps he will believe he is speaking to his own man, and not to a Royal Marine.” Mallorie told him with a glorious smile that promised more headaches in the future. Eames groaned but tried again. 

They were at it until the plane landed, never stopping for a break.


	7. When in Cuba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Team puts the final parts of their plan together to prepare for their Extraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for your patience with this chapter. I hope you enjoy it!

There was nothing to like about Guantanamo Bay. It was too hot, the sea air around them burned humid and wet. It was like trying to breathe in a steamed shower, and everyone hated it. The military didn’t seem to care about that and just trotted them off to a house on base. Dom and Mal were throwing about technical words on Dreamsharing faster than Eames and Arthur could keep up. They were going a mile a minute, sketching and drawing everything out so they could truly grasp this innovative suggestion.

Eames filled Arthur in on the idea of “pretending,” as they were calling it, after he woke up, and Arthur scrunched his face up. He wasn’t impressed in the slightest. “Don’t think I could do it?” Eames teased, but Arthur shrugged.

“Don’t think anyone would want to be other than who they are.”

“Sometimes it’s nice being someone else for a change.” Eames suggested evenly. “New hometown, new lovers, new friends, new parents-”

“None of it’s real, though.” Arthur said dully. “None of it’s real, so why would you _want_ to pretend. It just makes reality so much worse.” Eames looked troubled by the response, but in the end just shook his head and patted Arthur on the shoulder.

“Like I said, you’ve no imagination, love.” Arthur swatted at him. 

“I’m not your _love_.”

“I’m pretending to be your very British mother, and she calls you love.” Eames grinned cheekily. Arthur’s eyes narrowed tightly and he was marching away with heavy steps from that moment onwards. Eames stared, not quite sure what had just happened, but when he called after the Lieutenant he didn’t respond.

Later that evening, when they practiced dreaming again, Arthur’s projections tore Eames apart so much that eventually they had to call it quits. Eames was almost tempted to see how well Arthur fought in real life and if he’d like to feel a brick in the face. Their previous truce on never killing each other in the dream world seemed to have been completely nullified, though Arthur did say that it wasn’t his fault his subconscious hated Eames enough to rip him to shreds whenever he appeared.

 Kick seemed to pick up on his agitation, however, and he glared at Eames – hackles raised. “Mental.” Eames called them both, before standing up and returning to bed.

 Mallorie frowned at them all, not quite certain what to make of their newfound conflict. Arthur quickly vacated their testing room and went for a jog with Kick, and by the time Cobb woke up from the dream he’d been left alone with her. Mallorie sighed and pressed the back of her hand to her head.

 “Let’s have a drink.” Mallorie offers, and Cobb shrugs. It sounded amenable to him.

The military seemed willing enough, now that they were safe, to supply their safe house with all kinds of glorious supplies. There were a lot of different types of liquor in their cabinets, and several types of wine. Cobb pulled one of the bottles out of one of the cupboards and a couple of glasses. They weren’t proper for this type of drink, and Mallorie turned her nose up at the idea for a moment while Cobb poured them both a serving.

Then, sitting side by side, they sat on the floor of the kitchen and they dreamed while awake. Mallorie asked him about why he left her father, and Cobb told her about the military. He told her about the idea of spreading the dreams to the world. He told her about getting soldiers to open their minds and think about life in a different way. He told her about building for a purpose, not just in theory or in a lab, but for a group of people.

It was all about changing perspectives, changing how things could be. Cobb thought he was building a way for people to grow used to environments, would grow as people as well.

“By the time Arthur came up to me, I’d had suspicions. I’d…I’d seen the way those soldiers would wake up, how they were startled and uncomfortable and not certain. When Arthur finally said something, I’d already talked to Flynn about the program. Flynn had let me know that if I said one more word about the program, I’d be removed. I’d be forced to leave, but the program would continue. I thought it’d be better if I was still there, and try to influence from the inside.” Cobb sighed. “So I lied to Arthur, and I made it seem like I wasn’t interested. A few months later at a performance review, I gave them a particularly volatile dream. The higher ups saw the trauma, and cut the program. It was the only thing I could do.” 

“You should have tried harder.” She admonished, and he sighed, nodding. He really should have. There was nothing he could say that would make any of it better now though, and now the best they could do was to move forwards.

They practiced at a tireless pace, and they never showed signs of slowing down. Now that they weren’t forced to physically move from place to place anymore, they had more freedom to actually concentrate on their work. The results…were inspiring.

Kick was nothing if not vigilant while Arthur was sleeping. Arthur had refused to let the dog out of his sight after the flight to Cuba had ended, and no one really felt compelled to complain too much. At the very least, Kick was a dedicated part of their team who was always on the look out for new threats or problems. Arthur trained him rigorously and when he wasn’t working with Mallorie or Cobb, he was working with Kick to help keep him up to snuff.

But what was truly amazing was Kick’s dedication whenever Arthur wasn’t conscious. He would sit at Arthur’s side, pressed up against his body, and his ears would be up and eyes sharply focused. He kept track of the room, he kept track of the environment, and if anyone entered or if he seemed to think there was a threat, he would immediately start barking and yank Arthur clear off the chair he was sitting on. 

It happened so often, that it seemed commonplace for Arthur to have a myriad of bruises running along his side at all times. His hand was almost permanently scarred from where the leash kept snapping around it, and the only thing he changed was the texture of the grip he used. He continued to praise Kick for being so hyper-aware, and the dog continued to work as an early-warning-wake-up-call. 

On one of Arthur and Eames’ frequent _off_ days, where neither could stand the other one moment longer, Arthur had taken a perverse amount of pleasure in educating Kick on how to successfully knock other people out of their chairs too. The Labrador would roughly grab on to the dreamer and yank them off his or her chair so hard that they were waking up before they even hit the ground. 

“There _are_ gentler ways to do that.” Eames hissed after the fourth time. Arthur gave him an impressively innocent glance and didn’t seem to notice one way or the other that Eames was progressively growing more and more irritated with him.

Kick, though, was never blamed for Arthur’s moods. The dog sat at his handler’s side with such pride and focus that it was difficult to think less of him in any way. The dog seemed to know it too. Whenever Arthur let him off leash to do whatever he pleased, he’d adopted a perverse amount of pleasure in attacking and bothering anyone who was sleeping and waking them up like it was a game.

He never did it to Mallorie though. Mallorie, who had insisted that they just call her “Mal,” was Kick’s favorite after Arthur. The Labrador quite happily just snuggled up next to her and seemed to _know_ that she wouldn’t like it if he’d woken her up so violently. Instead, he just slept beside her and waited until Arthur came to collect him.

Arthur had long since suspected that Mal was giving Kick food under the table, and he scowled at her whenever Kick rushed to her side as though he was expecting a treat. Arthur never saw her feeding him, though. Instead, she’d pet him over and over again and tell him what a handsome boy he was and Kick would bark and snuggle happily as best he could.

“Your dog is a menace to society.” Eames muttered on one of his most uncharitable days.

“You’re a menace to society.” Arthur retorted petulantly.

“Very mature.” Cobb commented as he walked passed them both. Neither seemed to care much for Dom’s opinion though, so that hardly mattered.

Arthur still hadn’t gotten the chip off his shoulder from Eames’ flippant comment about being his mother, and while his subconscious had stopped tearing Eames to shreds the moment he stepped foot inside his mind, his attitude still hadn’t improved any. It had led to more than its fair share of fights, and Cobb and Mal had long since grown used to their obscene bickering.

For all the time Eames had spent coddling Arthur when he’d first arrived, taking into consideration the former Lieutenant’s exhaustion and clear trauma from the events that had taken place, he now seemed to spend an exorbitant amount of time doing everything in his power to mock and tease the younger man into distraction.

His irritation at Arthur’s, frankly, over the top reaction to his joke was only growing deeper every day. They seemed to have fallen into a ridiculous pattern of sniping and biting at each other with hackles raised every five minutes. While they argued, Mal would generally turn to Cobb and simply continue her report on their mission – ignoring the _children_ while they could.

If either soldier was frustrated at their reactions, neither showed it. They sulked and they pouted, and they were just as petulant as they had been before: only they tended to stay quieter in order to listen to what was being described.

That wasn’t to say that when things needed to be taken seriously Arthur and Eames were incapable of working together. More than once things had turned messy in Cobb’s recreation of Jabal al Bayt, and they fell back into that familiar discipline of the army that had taught them to work as a cohesive unit.

“They are like siblings.” Mal stated lightly, tapping one finger on her chin as she watched them argue about something completely irrelevant to their mission. “Or a married couple.” She determined at last, grinning brightly at the suggestion.

“We don’t fight like that.” Cobb said, confusion showing on his face. Mal raised a brow at him with a wry smile.

“Ah, but we are not married.” She concluded easily. Then, clapping her hands, she drew the soldier’s attention to them with a brief: “Children, may we continue, _s'il vous plait?”_

_“Oui.”_ Arthur would always reply primly even as he turned to make his way back to her. Eames stuck out his tongue, and without turning around, Arthur would show him his middle finger.

“Means nothing in my country.” Eames replied smugly, only to have Arthur’s pointer finger come out immediately and twist his hand to give the proper curse. “That’s better.” Eames praised, and Arthur stopped and looked ready to start bickering again when Mal clapped once more.

“ _Children!”_ They both snapped to and kept to either side of the room for the rest of that day.

Kick, it seemed, had adopted Arthur’s strange animosity towards Eames as easily as he’d adopted Arthur’s fondness for Mal. He ran hot and cold with the Brit, not seeming to know whether to like or hate the man. Eames didn’t bother with trying to control Kick any more than Kick seemed interested in being controlled, but whenever they interacted Kick was more agitated than usual. He’d look at Eames warily, and Eames was actually grateful to note that Arthur always kept an eye on Kick during these associations. It was as though he was more than aware of his dog’s animosity, and was ready to step in if it became a problem.

For all of Arthur’s insistence that he didn’t care whether Eames lived or died, he didn’t want to see him maimed. He was more than happy to argue with him every day, but he wasn’t willing to allow Kick to start showing aggression to his team member. It was big of him, Eames supposed, though not entirely unexpected. Arthur was nothing if not a dedicated handler, and he never let his personal issues affect his dog in any way.

It wasn’t all fun and games in Cuba, however.

Mallorie was intensely focused on her work with Kader. She took down dozens of pages of notes, and she made certain that she was backtracking an analyzing every bit of information she could get her hand on. While Eames and Cobb continued to work on both the architecture and Eames’s (what they were now deciding to call) forgery, Arthur was left on his own most of the time.

Feeling no pressing danger, and certainly drawing no complaints from the soldiers who patrolled Gitmo, Arthur and Kick joined a regimented training program. Kick was given the opportunity to work with other military dogs, and Arthur made sure that he was given exactly the right instruction he needed. For himself, Arthur was out there running paces with the best of them – often overtaking the soldiers he trained with.

Flynn watched, occasionally, while he was moving from place to place. He never left the base either, although whenever stopped he always insisted that he was busy and had work to attend to. No one really believed him; they knew that due to the secretive nature of their mission, and all of the risks that had led to getting them to Cuba, had caused enough trouble. He didn’t want them out of his sight any more than they wanted to remain under his watchful eyes. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do about their predicament, as he was the one who held all the cards.

Of everyone involved in the mission, Flynn spoke to Arthur the most. Eames had already expressed his violent tendencies relating towards Flynn, and neither Mallorie nor Cobb truly had any idea what to say to the man or how to talk to him without making things worse for themselves. 

Arthur knew politics and he knew the military. So whenever Flynn asked for an update, he was the one who collected the information from his fellow team members and reported to Flynn. He spoke calmly and collectedly, and he never lost that familiar military stance- feet shoulder width apart, hands behind his back. Kick sat at his side looking as proud as he ever was.

Flynn listened with a neutral expression at all times. Eventually, he would nod his head and dismiss Arthur, and that would be the end of their conversations with each other. Arthur never let it get personal, and Flynn didn’t want it to _be_ personal. Instead, he wanted a soldier to act like a soldier: and that’s exactly what he got. 

Sometimes, though, while he watched Arthur train with the others, he would look like he wanted to say something more. Arthur made it his mission to disappear promptly after training, and return to the house that he shared with the other members of their team. Eames, Mal, or Dom would look up when he walked through the door and greet him before giving him a brief explanation of what had happened while he was away. 

Arthur would thank them, and then he would shower and return to do his own duty. Around this time, Eames would slip out to do some exercise of his own, and Cobb would take a break to eat or do something with Mal. Generally left alone to his own devices, Arthur let Kick off his leash and allowed the dog to do as he pleased.

In return for this brief bit of silence, Arthur would take out his laptop and start putting those engineering skills to work. He took apart Mal’s notes and he made an organized diagram out of them. He wrote down everything Kader said and he analyzed the information from a different perspective than she did.

Where she was looking at the psychology of his words, at what those words meant to _him_ , Arthur was looking at the practicality of them. How did what he was saying relate to the real world? What could be proven? What couldn’t be proven? Arthur was nothing if not determined. He didn’t want to live through another Jabal al Bayt – he didn’t want to see more than half his team get slaughtered just to have nothing at the end.

This all needed to be worth it, and Arthur was determined to find something that could help.

He ran through satellite images of the night of the attack, he focused on known relations of Kader, and he started to familiarize himself with the Najdi dialect. When they weren’t arguing with each other, Arthur and Eames would practice speaking it. When they were, Arthur and Eames would practice cursing in it.

Arthur would join Mal during her afternoon sessions. He’d sit behind the glass window to watch as Mal interacted with Kader, and he took his own notes on the topic. Sometimes Eames would come with him and they’d just sit in silence, watching the man that they’d dragged across Afghanistan together and preparing themselves to invade his mind.

“You need to work on your ending vowels and consonants, they still slur a bit.” Arthur told Eames seriously the more they listened to Kader speak. Eames nodded his head. He already made a plan to work it through.

Every evening they dreamed together. One more practice run, one more night in Jabal al Bayt.

Nothing kept the panic from filling him, when Arthur would open his eyes and find himself staring at the building. A part of his subconscious still clung onto this place as a moment of memory: it was dangerous and terrifying. _He shouldn’t be here_. His mind cautioned him. His hand clenched and unclenched around a leash that was never there, and he shivered violently in the night.

“You ready, Lieutenant?” Eames would always ask him. Arthur looked up to meet his eyes, and nodded.

They never fought in the Dream. This was a place for business and nothing else. Aside from Arthur’s overly violent subconscious, he had never perpetuated an argument or done anything to attack Eames here. Neither had the Captain. They knew better than that. 

They ran through the buildings, following paths through memorized hallways and plans. They knew what to say to Kader, they knew how to interact with him. Everything was going to be a go.

Eames’ pretending was so perfect; Arthur nearly shot him in fright when he’d first turned up. He’d raised his gun desperately, heart pounding in his chest, but Eames shimmered into existence immediately – palms up. His face was solemn. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m fine.” Arthur bit out.

“You going to be fine in there?” Eames asked, deathly calm.

“Of course I will be.”

“You sure?” Eames wanted to know, needed to know for certain.

“Yes.” Arthur nodded sharply, and Eames seemed to be contemplating whether or not he should believe him.

In the end, he must have seen something in Arthur’s face to make him nod his head. “Then we’re ready to go, I think.” Eames commented. Arthur nodded. They could hear Mal’s music start to fill the air. Moments later, the sedatives ran out and they were awake.

Cobb collected the last bit of information from the pair of them, before quickly making adjustments that they called for. Mal handed them all drinks, and they had a toast before they started to pack everything up.

Flynn was coming by that evening, and they needed to tell him that they were ready to go ahead with his extraction. It was the best idea they’d had so far, and it was the only way that they thought that it was going to work. Cobb and Mal were actually thrumming with scientific excitement that neither Arthur nor Eames truly understood.

They’d been staying up later and later every night to discuss possibilities and plans for the future. They wanted to keep after this idea of mind manipulation. Would it be easier to steal the secrets from someone, or have them tell them to you? They wanted to try to work out exactly how the brain compartmentalized its flaws and issues. They wanted to know everything.

Arthur and Eames just wanted to go home and stop having Al Qaeda blowing up their places of living. Or at the very least, have them stop hunting after them. Neither had told their partners what they’d already discovered, and they were waiting for Flynn to admit their suspicions before they got too excited.

Still, Mal was difficult to stay silent around. She liked people to talk and she enjoyed pulling them into conversation. Any fears or concerns on their part was quickly swept under the rug.

“To my very dear friends, may you be able to go home after tomorrow.” She held up her glass of dry wine, and they did the same. They clinked their drinks together and then swallowed.

Two hours later: Flynn came.

He liked their idea.

He signed them off.

Tomorrow was their day. 


End file.
